www.gwinnettforum.com - Posted: January 13th by Elliott Brack

JAN. 13, 2012 -- At first glance, you wondered: "What in the world……"

Brack

Yet then you realized something must be afoot. We're talking about the move by the Gwinnett Center to give Pepsi Cola the exclusive non-alcoholic beverage rights to its facilities.

The flip side means that Pepsi's big rival, Coca Cola, is out the door. What? This is happening in the Deep South, and in particular, in a suburb of Atlanta, the home of Coke?

Something big must have happened. And it did: from talking with several people, we learned what happened. Over the last 18 months, the keys in deciding this question were first, the almost naïve, nonchalant attitude of Coke representatives, compared to the energetic, bending-over-backward efforts by the Pepsi people. That's what we hear.

Add in that when all was said and done, the local people making the decision on the question sought to do what was right for the people of Gwinnett County. What they ended up getting, these deciders felt, was a "win-win" for the county at the best possible price.

Overall, the multi-year contract amounts to what has been referred to as "chump-change" compared to the overall revenue of the Gwinnett Center. After all, it has big-dollar shows at between 600 to 700 events every year. But Pepsi also brought a "can-do" attitude, and added the benefit of promoting the arena through its advertising program, such as: "See the Harlem Globetrotters at the Gwinnett Arena, and enjoy Pepsi products while you are there," etc.

Pepsi products began to be sold at the Center facilities on January 1. The facilities include The Arena at Gwinnett Center, the Convention Center, the Performing Arts Center and the Hudgens' Center for the Arts. Under the agreement, Pepsi will provide the facilities with a wide range of soft drinks, water, sports drinks, teas, juices and other beverages. Terms of the relationship have not been disclosed.

Coca Cola has previously provided beverages for the Gwinnett Center since the Center opened in November 1992.

One thought circulating this week was that Coke was not concerned about losing the Gwinnett contract since some perhaps thought the Gwinnett community would not stand for Coke being excluded from the Center. After all, Gwinnett was part of the Metro Atlanta community, and look at the many contributions that Coca Cola and its interests make to the overall community every year.

Yet perhaps the Gwinnett community is not as insular as it might appear. After all, it resembles counties outside Georgia more than it does Georgia counties. Areas such as Collin County, Texas, Contra Costa County in California, or Pasco County in Florida, have much in common with Gwinnett. All have been fast growing. And Gwinnett is perhaps the most diverse county in the entire Untied States. It is no longer composed merely of good old boys who have moved from South Carolina or Alabama. Gwinnettians come from all across the country, and increasingly, from other parts of the world.

Gwinnett is ripe for new ideas, and now Pepsi is one of them!

Coke recently had a major national debacle in the color of its Coca-Cola cans, which were too similar to Diet Cola cans, and customers complained. Perhaps that was distracting to the Coke people during the Gwinnett negotiations. But for sure, this decision by Gwinnett turned a couple of heads around this area. Something, indeed, was afoot.