Red Return For White Polar Bear Coke Cans

Coca-Cola has been hit with a flood of criticism over its recently-unveiled white can designs. As a result, a new production run of iconic red cans will be released, joining the white cans in connection with the same, environmentally-themed promotional campaign.

The white Coca-Cola cans celebrate the firm's involvement with the World Wildlife Fund and feature a polar bear design on a mainly white background.

Packaging International reported on these white polar bear cans at the end of October 2011 and, then, it was said that as many as 1.4 billion so-called ‘Arctic Home' cans would be manufactured and displayed on supermarket shelves between November 2011 and February 2012.

White Polar Bear Cans

Since then, there's been a wave of complaints from members of the public that the white polar bear cans too closely resemble Diet Coke, which has traditionally been packaged in a silver can. According to reports, the situation's led to those that would normally purchase Diet Coke to, instead, buy the much more-sugary alternative.

"We launched ‘Arctic Home' to raise awareness and funds for the polar bear", a Coca-Cola representative explained. "We committed up to $3 million to World Wildlife Fund and are encouraging others to join us in helping protect the bears and their habitat. The plan is to continue shipping the billion-plus white cans until they run out and we are nearing that now."

Red Polar Bear Coke

Coca-Cola will now produce red polar bear Coke cans, still featuring the Arctic Home design, and release these to the market, where they'll be sold alongside the white cans. The plan isn't to remove the white cans from the public domain, simply not to produce any more. As a result, supermarket shelves will soon feature a mix of white and red Polar Bear Coke cans.

The goal of Arctic Home is to raise the public profile of polar bears and the challenges they face in the Arctic. Coca-Cola is asking the public to make individual, $1 donations. The drinks firm's intention is to match these donations until they hit the $1m mark.

Image copyright diego medrano - reproduced here with grateful thanks