Don't win at the expense of the consumer!

I'm staying at a hotel in Minneapolis. I find that, like at home, I need to eat when in Minneapolis. You'd think the funny name of the town would be more than enough nourishment but I still get hungry. Go figure. Anyway, I called room service to order some food and wanted to order some Coke Zero. But, alas, this is a Pepsi hotel.

This ticks me off. Pepsi has made me a prisoner here. Now instead of basically forcing me to buy your product, why not just make it so damn good that I would never think of buying Coke? But they haven't done that.

I bought two Diet Pepsis. Pepsi earned a few cents. But they have now pissed me off. And I am considering adding them to the banned list. This is my list of companies or brands who have so ticked me off that they will never get any more money from me without a major act of restitution on their part.

Do you think taking consumers hostage is really a good strategy?

[Note: Coke Zero is the best all-purpose mass-produced diet soda. It kicks the ass of anything that Pepsi produces. In fact, it should make regular Coke obsolete. I cannot think of any reason for regular Coke to exist anymore. And although I oppose government regulation in nearly all cases, if we're going to tax cigarettes and the like with an eye towards reducing smoking, we should disproportionately tax regular Coke to encourage people to switch to Zero.]