Dividends: No Pepsi, Please

At Columbia Pictures, things better go with Coke. That was the message in the memo sent to employees in Burbank, Calif., and New York last week by Studio Chairman Frank Price. He told executives that Columbia's new owner, the Coca-Cola Co. of Atlanta, which bought the film and entertainment firm last winter for some $820 million, would not take kindly to finding telltale signs of products like 7-Up and Pepsi-Cola on studio property.

Price reportedly decreed that no competing soft drinks should be served at company functions. Whenever possible, he went on, even the blue color associated with Coke's archrival, Pepsi,...

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