• by Danielle Oster , April 30, 2025

A boycott is bothering a beverage behemoth’s bottom line.

During a call with investors discussing the company’s earnings for the first quarter, Coca-Cola acknowledged that a boycott by Hispanic consumers had taken a toll on sales during the period.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincy said “volume was impacted by weakening consumer sentiment as the quarter progressed, particularly among Hispanic consumers.”

That comments alluded to the impact of a boycott organized by Hispanic consumers in the U.S., in response to videos shared on social media claiming to show the company firing Latino staff and reporting immigrant workers to authorities.

Coca-Cola has refuted the accuracy of the videos and their accompanying claims. “There were some very unfortunate videos circulating around -- false, completely false -- but they impact the business. That hit us, particularly Coke Original, in the southern states,” he explained.

The impact of the boycott appears to extend beyond the southern border as well.

“We called out some of the pullback in Hispanic consumers in The U.S. as…one of the factors in the U.S. volume [decline]. That is also the same thing that’s happening in Mexico, in Northern Mexico,” Quincy said during the call.

“We’re focusing in on winning back some of the Hispanic consumers, both from a consumer and a channel point of view,” he added, with a particular focus on the Coca-Cola Original brand.

The company’s strategy for appealing to consumers? Keeping costs down and continuing to integrate changes to its marketing practices that lead to greater productivity -- factors that contributed to growth during the quarter, according to Quincy, who said that with company’s in-house Studio X, Coca-Cola was “producing tailored digital marketing at scale and with speed, and we’re measuring the impact in real time.”

“The use of new technology to be able to do activities which in the analog world were more expensive, and took a longer time…is something that we’re embedding more and more into the marketing equation,” Coca-Cola CFO John Murphy added. “The way in which we are planning our media using  much more sophisticated data sets…is another opportunity to create the same, if not higher impact, more efficiently.”

Quincy also called  continued volume growth for its Coca-Cola Zero Sugar brand, and continued positive performance by its Fairlife and Topo Chico brands, “bright spots” for the first three months of 2025.

The company also addressed the potential impact of the Trump administration's erratic tariff policy changes, while expressing optimism about its ability to weather the storm.

“Based on what we know today, the dynamic tariff landscape could impact pockets of our systems cost structure as well as consumer sentiment in our markets,” Murphy explained. “At this time, we believe we have numerous levers to help manage the impact…[and] we believe our business model has the flexibility needed to allow us to deliver on our near-term commitments.”

As a result, in the U.S., the company was “sticking to our current pricing plans for the year, knowing what we know today.”

Coca-Cola’s call with investors follows on the heels of rivals PepsiCo and KDP’s earnings calls last week, during which both companies hinted that tariffs could eventually lead to increased prices for consumers.