Problems Pop Up in Coke Promotion

The Coca-Cola Company earlier this month introduced its costliest summer promotion ever. But instead of winning more fans, the $100 million campaign has bought the world's biggest soft-drink company a world of trouble, including the potential for product liability suits, some lawyers contend.

For the promotion, selected Coke cans were stuffed with cash or prize coupons totaling $4 million - instead of Coca-Cola. But an 11-year-old boy in Massachusetts drank a foul-tasting liquid from one of the cans, prompting his parents to alert state health authorities.

Worried about the bad publicity from that report, Coke took out advertisements yesterday in newspapers in 50 big United States markets. The full-page ads, to be run only once, warned consumers that a ''very small number'' of cans contain a foul-smelling, but harmless, water that should not be drunk.

Coca-Cola also bought television time to deliver the same message.

By mounting such a large publicity campaign, however, legal experts said yesterday that Coca-Cola, which had revenues last year of $9 billion, might have opened itself up to a variety of consumer lawsuits.

Marc A. Franklin, a professor at Stanford University's law school and an authority on product liability, said that anyone who drank the liquid could make a strong product-liabiity case.

''All he would have to do is hire an attorney, sue the Coca-Cola Company, and he would win,'' said Mr. Franklin, the author of a standard textbook on personal-injury law. ''The only question is how much he would win.''

Subscribe to The Times to read as many articles as you like.