They do it for a couple of reasons that I can think of off the top of my head. The first is that Americans are all about short cuts without sacrifice. They want to be healthy, but they don't want to give anything up to do it. They still want to consume all the same crap they always have. Diet soda is a giant misnomer that is designed to make it sound like it's healthy to consume when it's anything but. The vast majority of the "diet" and "low calorie" products on the market are chock full of crap that's even worse for you than what was in the original, "non-diet" versions of the products. But no one wants to just stop ingesting all that junk and start eating healthy and exercise (except for psychotics like myself). They'd rather gladly accept whatever lies the marketing pukes invent for them to wash down with their diet soda. There is a reason things like "diet" sodas far outsell their "regular" or "original" counterparts, after all. And that's really the second reason they are advertised so much: if you have a smash success on your hands, you want to keep the momentum going by making sure people know about it and that it's constantly popping up in front of them frequently so they'll be thinking about buying your product more often than not. Pretty simple marketing strategy. And don't think that the companies who make all this garbage don't know their products are horrible for people to consume in mass quantities over a long term period. They do. But they love consumer's money more than they love the consumers. It's one thing to have a soda once every month or two. I know people who drink a six-pack of the crap before lunch. Not good.
jag
It's like light beer and my response to that is grrrr...
