Well I can jump in here. Not that I want to reveal my personal life here, but I used to work at Coke's corporate office. Drinking a competitor's product within the office was heavily frowned upon, because it basically revealed you simply didn't give a fuck what anyone thought of you, or about the business (you have to pretend you drank the Kool-aid... I mean Coke! the coke...). Also, I guess some of the old fucks there had "dedicated their lives to these brands" (cue vomiting). I don't think it was explicitly banned -- you would probably just get a talking to. The one thing that was explicitly banned was using company funds/ corporate cards to BUY competitor products when eating a lunch or dinner. If Coca Cola is footing the bill for the lunch, you will be certainly NOT be buying Pepsi or Dr. Pepper products. Booze and alcohol were not considered competitors, thankfully. Other than that, if I was out of the office, did I give a fuck whether I drank Coke or Pepsi? No. Not remotely. I'm not a corporate lackey, and they pay me to work and do my job, not follow ridiculous rules when I'm off the clock. In fact, some weeks when I was pissed off at something/ someone/ some sales asshole at the company, I would actually seek out Pepsi products. Yeah! Fuck these assholes! That would be the general logic.
I guess my question would be: what was your job at the corporate office? You you a (for lack of a better term) nameless, faceless drone? Or were you somehow publicly a face of the company? Like, an executive or a VP or something. While being a nameless, faceless drone is a shitty lot, at least they can get away with doing more because no one is going to give a shit if someone who just works as a drone at Coca-Cola is drinking a Pepsi off the clock, because really, how is anyone going to even know you work for Coke?
Well, I was a salaried professional, but obviously, like 99% of workers, a nameless, faceless drone. But even the VP's there would not be recognized on the street. Hell, I would maybe recognize the VP of the department I was working at, and none of the other big wigs (aside from the CEO). And I worked there. The outside public would give less of a shit. Hell, the general public would barely recognize the CEO of Pepsi or Coca Cola, nor name them (aside from people interested in food and beverage corporations, or stock trading). Obviously the CEO wouldn't drink competitor products, nor would the other very top level executives who made fortune of the proletariat wage slaves underneath them. But if I saw them drinking the other brands? I wouldn't be shocked, or give a shit. It's fucking soda (or sports drinks or juice, etc). It's all the same fucking sugar water, and it tastes pretty similar. As long as the hapless consumer is duped about the next Ultimate Xtremo Jacked UP Sports-science energy drink --- and buys new iterations of corn syrup --- who cares what the executives consume.