Pepsi vs. Coke

The war between Pepsi and Coca-Cola is spreading around the world as the two soda giants seek to establish their presence in emerging markets. Ethiopia is no exception. Here, it seems, Pepsi is currently ahead, and by more than just a few bottles and cans. In Addis Ababa we had noticed many more signs around town advertising Pepsi than Coke. Not sure why Pepsi is ahead, but perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Ethiopia's richest man, Sheik Mohammed Hussein Al-amoudi, owns the soda company that bottles Pepsi in the country.

In Gonder, Pepsi dominated even more than was the case in Addis, with the company's blue-white-red signs appearing pretty much everywhere downtown. For example, Pepsi sponsored the little spaces that housed the traffic police at some of the intersections.

Also the flower vase by our hotel entrance...













Pepsi's extraordinarily strong showing in Gonder
suddenly made sense. It turned out that the town
housed a major Pepsi factory.



So what about Coke? Was it completely invisible in Gonder, a city of almost 200,000 people? Well, of course not. Coke wouldn't be Coke if it didn't advertise at least a little bit. We saw one ad for Coke in Gonder. It was at the market, on this horse carrier that served as taxi.