It might have a lot to do with four different people (or maybe more) involved in the whole process:
1.) The person who decides to use the half-litre size. 2.) The person who is in charge of designing the label for the bottle itself 3.) The person who designs the carton for the bottles 4.) The person who has to answer your email The person who decides on what the bottle size will be may be 100 % pro-metric and tells the label maker that the size is going to be a half litre. Not knowing anything about SI style, the label designer decides to make the label show a weird looking .5 LITER, which if not careful may read more like 5 LITER, instead of the more simple 0.5 L. The carton maker is anti-metric or metric ignorant and feels he needs to convert to FFU and emphasize it. He may also be the type to state that Americans don't understand metric and to emphasize it would be criminal. Or one who himself doesn't understand metric and feels if he doesn't, no one else does either, so only expressions in FFU would be understood. So this guy makes the carton show only this weird 16.9 floozie. Then there is the poor guy who has to answer your email and goes back to the last 2 guys and each one kicks in his heels and refuses to change their way of labelling. Not wanting to show that there is no common policy on size determination and how that size is to be labelled, he either comes up with a statement on how his marketing department's research determined this is the best way, or decides to avoid the issue all together and ignore you. To answer your question simply, you are dealing with multiple personalities who insist on doing it their way and expecting the others to change. Euric ----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Trusten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, 2004-07-17 14:52 Subject: [USMA:30462] Re: 500 ml coke bottles? > Your timing is exquisite, John. I just got through writing someone to tell > them about Coca Cola bottles from Mexico on grocery shelves here in Texas > where I live. Albertson's has a kind of Mexican section in the store, and > there are some Coke bottles ther. Only this particular Coke, in a glass > bottle, is labeled only "NETTO 355 mL". It's the ghost of WOMBAT, no doubt. > > Coca Cola does market 500 mL glass bottles in the U.S., even calling them > ".5 LITER" on the bottle itself. However, the outer carton on the six-pack > reads boldly "6 16.9 fl.oz. bottles." Jump start my heart! I wrote to them > about this a long time ago, pleading with them to go the extra milliliter > and make the ".5 LITER" the primary measurement on the cardboard. They've > done so well, why no go all the way? > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "J. Ward" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 12:52 > Subject: [USMA:30457] 500 ml coke bottles? > > > > I just saw coca-cola being sold in 500 ml glass bottles. I live in > southern > > California, and the bottles looked imported from Mexico. Anyone else see > > these elsewhere in the US? > > > > John > > > > > >
