Woody Bendle has guest authored several rants on the Brainzooming blog, so I figured I’d take a run at one myself.
A Fast Company article this week from John Brownlee whines excessively about a design change on Coca-Cola cans and the perceived lack of creative thinking behind it. Coca-Cola has apparently redesigned its cans so ice cubes depicted on the can change color to indicate when the contents are adequately chilled.
The article complains about the move as a needless design change others have already done that presents no practical benefits for Coca-Cola drinkers - other than for those “people without hands” who want a cold Coke.
These types of articles are so annoying – and so lacking in creative thinking, ironically. They seem primarily written to:
As an avid drinker of pop (as we call it here in the Midwest) although not a frequent Diet Coke drinker, I can name at least five situations where this feature delivers a benefit:
All but number 5 have taken place for me in the past several weeks. Number 3 was especially frustrating since I paid a buck for a warm Diet Coke straight from an ice chest at an event.
So yes, there ARE reasons why this design change delivers a benefit.
Just maybe writers who specialize at complaining about someone else’s perceived lack of creative thinking would do well to spend a few moments doing their own creative thinking to come up with some ideas that are more winning than whining. - Mike Brown