Coca Karma
This is a court case that I have been following for quite some time. And feel that in light of resent events I must pay my respects, to a man who challenged a corporate giant in the name of justice. His struggles sadly lead to many years of pain and fruitless results. After 16 years of battling it has all come to an end when earlier this year, Bobby Kolody’s wife, Shelly found him sitting upright in his room, his fists were clenched but his heart had stopped beating.
For those of you who do not know, it all began back in 1989, when an independent marketing consultant named Bob Kolody pitched Simon Marketing, aka Coca Colas ad agency, a few concepts that involved a graphic collusion of Coca-Cola and automobiles memorabilia. Bob Kolody heard nothing from Simon Marketing and later heard that his campaign was being disseminated though Coke’s new Cherry Coke can design. When Kolody attempted to discuss the matter with Simon Marketing he was rebuffed and they claimed to have lost his story boards.
In 1994 Kolody saw the ‘contour bottle’ on a Coke Classic Can in an airport and realised that Coke had adopted another of his original concepts. For three years Kolody could not find someone to file his case against Coca-Cola and Simon Marketing, but then in 1997 Kolody finally got John De Camp to file the court case and so began the never ending war.
It is a very interesting and long case, full of lies, injustice and government intervention, the case is impossible to summarise. How ever a detailed account can found at http://web.archive.org/web/20040405130209/www.guerrillanews.com/cocakarma/synop.html.
