Coca-Cola lays off 2,200 employees, Google responds to latest antitrust lawsuit, and PepsiCo builds buzz for new ‘Cocoa cola’

Hello, communicators:

PepsiCo is creating a new “Cocoa” flavor, which it will debut next year. To build buzz for the beverage ahead of time, the company’s social media team asked Twitter followers to retweet the news at least 2,021 times:

https://twitter.com/pepsi/status/1339586149275222018

The number was hit within a few hours and the tweet has amassed more than 4,100 retweets at time of publishing:

https://twitter.com/pepsi/status/1339647582646251520

Building off that momentum, Pepsi’s team is continuing to tweet “hot takes and cold Pepsi” (or so it says in its Twitter bio).

This year had big “take a bath with an entire pizza” energy and honestly? Here for it.

— Pepsi (@pepsi) December 17, 2020

Here are today’s top stories:

 The beverage company’s layoffs will affect 1,200 in the United States—roughly 12% of its workforce—with 500 jobs eliminated at Coke’s Atlanta headquarters. The job cuts are a mix of voluntary buyouts and job cuts, racking up $350 million to $550 million in severance costs.