Coca-Cola buys Harry Potter rights (was Re: Horrible Thought)

[Rosmerta]

Amber <reanna20 at y...> wrote <snip> 
> 
and the most Horrible Thought of all...HP in Happy Meals at McDonalds!
> <shrieks and runs for the hills>

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, which is a watchdog 
organization to the food industry in the states (they were the people 
who pointed out that movie popcorn was being cooked in palm oil) has 
an editorial in their latest newsletter taking Coca-Cola to task for 
buying the rights to the first Harry Potter movie for $150 million. 

Apparently, JKR won't allow fast-food tie-ins and product placement 
so Coke most likely will do "soft" marketing instead, like sposoring 
Harry-related reading programs where they just happen to serve Coke, 
but CSPI's alarmed enough (and to be fair, some people think they're 
alarmIST) to run a little box exhorting people to complain about the 
marketing rights. 

The box says: "If you're a Harry Potter fan and feel betrayed by 
Harry's sellout to boost soft-drink sales, please contact author J.K. 
Rowling through her agent (christopher at christopherlittle.net with a 
cc to us at SaveHarry at cspinet.org) and her publisher (Richard 
Robinson, CEO, Scholastic Inc., 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012). 
Also feel free to let Coke know what you think (800-438-2653)."

The editorial itself was very complimentary to Rowling for both her 
writing and her decisions to try and limit food tie-ins. I don't see 
it up on their site (www.cspinet.org) but maybe they haven't posted 
it yet. 

~Rosmerta
who's posting this as an fyi rather than exhorting people to 
political action.