When the ‘Share a Coke’ initiative started, it was only a matter of time before people started taking the piss.

The company managed to fend off pranksters for quite a while, though.

To date, more than 770 000 South Africans have been able to see their names on Coke cans and bottles.

Now, the campaign promo events will be discontinued due to the one prankster who managed to overcome the controls put in place to prevent dodgy words from appearing on cans.

Before we get to that, though, let’s do a retrospective of other cans that beat the system, with the help of Business Insider:

First up, ‘Share a Coke’ with ISIS:

And if ISIS isn’t your thing, you can ‘Share a Coke’ with Obesity:

It’s funny because it’s true.

Moving on to the can that ended it all:

The can above invites you to “Share a Coke” with (the XiTsonga word) “Xitombo”, which means vagina:

The word was printed onto the can during one of the beverage company’s country-wide Share a Coke “activation” events, intended to build excitement around its current advertising campaign.

“We take this incident very seriously for many reasons,” Camilla Osborne, spokesperson for Coca-Cola Southern Africa, told Business Insider South Africa.

“Not only has the incident offended the Tsonga community and the public in general, but it contravenes the spirit of the campaign which is about inclusivity, respecting diversity and understanding, both of which are unacceptable.”

In other words, no more events where people can create their own Coke cans.

I’m also failing to see the problem. It says vagina – so what?

[source:businessinsider]