Essay del Bicho

“Cristiano Ronaldo snub sees Coca-Cola market value fall by $4bn” read one headline by
the sports’ news giant, ESPN (Adriana Garcia, 2021). This headline sure makes for a good story
of how a health-conscious famous athlete, no other than Cristiano Ronaldo himself, managed on
his own to drive down 4 billion dollars of one of the biggest companies in the world, Coca Cola.
And it would be a good tittle and article if only it were true.

First, it is important to know the facts of what really happened. According to Reuters
(Manasi Pathak, 2021) in the morning of June 14th of 2021 Cristiano Ronaldo was in a pre-match
conference before a match against Hungary in the UEFA European Championship group stage.
When Ronaldo sat down, he saw that there were two bottles of Coca Cola on the table that were
there because Coca Cola was one of the sponsors of the tournament. Promptly after sitting down,
he removed them from the table, and instead placed a bottle of water while saying, “Água!”.
That is what happened, but promptly after many mainstream media outlets started releasing
articles in which they attributed a 4 billion dollar fall in the stock price of Coca Cola to that
single comment made by Ronaldo. Now, it is important to know a little about how the stock
market works, and what exactly happened that day to the stocks of Coca Cola. There is
something called market noise which refers to relatively small fluctuations in the share prices of
stocks that happen every day due to various factors, yet do not impact the overall trend (Justin
Kuepper, 2022). Coca Cola is one of the biggest companies in the world, so a drop of 4 billion
dollars represents barely 2% of the stock price which would classify it as typical market noise.
Also, according to Forbes (2021), “At 9:40 a.m. EST, its (Coca Cola’s) stock price was $55.26
(down 1.6%) and the market value had dipped to $238 billion, $4 billion lower than the prior
day. Cristiano Ronaldo moves the Coca-Cola bottles at 9.43 a.m. EST and says ‘Água’”. So, the
price of Coca Cola stock had already dropped due to unrelated factors before Ronaldo even
walked into the conference room. After all this fact checking it is evident that Cristiano Ronaldo
did not have any real effect on Coca Cola’s stock price. Then, why did so many news outlets
report false information as if it were true when they only needed to do a little digging to prove
the contrary? This is when the concept of post-truth comes in. As stated in the Cambridge
Dictionary (2023), a post-truth is an adjective used to describe situations in which people are
more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on
facts. The Ronaldo and Coca Cola situation classifies as a post truth because news outlets
presented their arguments without basing it on any factual information, but rather presenting it as
a story fabricated to resonate with people’s emotions. The story of how Cristiano Ronaldo, the
athlete who advocates a healthy lifestyle, fought, and won against the big bad unhealthy Coca
Cola sounds much better than “Cristiano Ronaldo snubs Coca Cola, and nothing happens to its
stock price”. And we must also take into account that it is in the news outlets best interest to
present stories that resonate with people’s emotions because that gets more clicks than a boring
story. Also, for people who do not know how the stock market really works, the story that the
media presented does make logical sense. Ronaldo says that Coca Cola is bad, and coincidentally
that same day the stock prices of Coca Cola go down. Average people who just skim through
news will read that and say, “Yeah, sounds about right” because it seems like a plausible
situation.
 In conclusion, in our current digital world, it is easy for false information to spread
without anyone checking its veracity. Post-truths can be especially dangerous because they
appear to make sense, and appeal to our emotions or preconceived notions yet they show false
information. We must be aware that when we are presented with information that confirm our
views, we are more likely to accept it, this is known as confirmation bias (American
Phycological Association, 2023). Also, we must know that appeals to emotion can sound more
appealing, yet not all the time are factual. In this case, it is a relatively harmless lie, but it goes to
show how fake news can easily spread and affect other more important things like politics. As
readers, we must exercise our critical thinking, be skeptical of everything we read, and be aware
of our biases which can go on to affect our views.

Bibliography

American Phycological Asociation (2023) Confirmation Bias.

https://dictionary.apa.org/confirmation-bias?
utm_source=edcor.com&utm_medium=enl&campaignid=70161000001Msst&vid=10000
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Adriana Garcia (2021) Cristiano Ronaldo snub sees Coca-Cola market value fall by $4bn. ESPN.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37618171/cristiano-ronaldo-snub-sees-coca-
cola-share-price-fall-4bn

Cambrdige Dictionary (2023) Post-Truth.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/post-truth

Forbes (2021) A Post-Truth World: Why Ronaldo Did Not Move Coca-Cola Share Price.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/iese/2021/06/19/a-post-truth-world-why-ronaldo-did-not-
move-coca-cola-share-price/?sh=2defbef3efbb

Justin Kuepper (2022) Trading Without Market Noise. Ivestopedia.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/06/marketnoise.asp#:~:text=help%20you
%20profit.-,What%20Is%20Market%20Noise%3F,small%20corrections%20and
%20intraday%20volatility.

Manasi Pathak (2021) 'Drink water!'-Ronaldo removes Coca-Cola bottles at Euro press
conference. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/drink-water-ronaldo-
removes-coca-cola-bottles-euro-press-conference-2021-06-15/