Meetings Second round...Microsoft and Coke

Our second round of meetings was quite informative on how American Companies (the big guys) are leveraging their strengths to use the massive technology sector in Finland. We met with different factions of Microsoft and Coca Cola today to discuss the market and how business is approached when entering foreign markets. As mentioned before GREEN seemed to be a large topic of discussion. And although the Finnish culture is very self aware (through heavy taxation of everything) it seems the the major US companies are following suit due to many of the new Obama govt. roll out initiatives and the realization that is where the money is.
Of all the folks we have met with so far, the woman who spoke with us today about Coca Cola and there business strategy seemed to offer the most. It was quite interesting to follow the branding strategies and preferential differences they have to take into account as they distribute across even the smallest of areas. Finland seems to be on of the smallest soft drink consuming per person countries over here. I would assume from the numbers much of the cultural influence is not taste preference but the heavy tax posted on soft drinks in comparison to juice and water. Still trying to understand how they few RED BULL as a health drink....