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Because companies that get to the size of Coca-Cola are very risk averse. They have a good thing going and don't want to ruin it. And the prevailing (though mistaken) sentiment in business is that advertising is basically a magic wand to increase sales, no matter the circumstances. Combine those two things, and you get companies like Coca-Cola wasting money on advertising because they don't want to deviate from the popular wisdom and risk negative effects. It's incredibly stupid, but who is going to stick their neck out by cancelling all the ads for a quarter or two to prove that the expenditure is wasted? It's like the old saying about "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM".
I mean, I hear what you are saying. But that makes it all the more bizarre when they run advertising that tells me I'm a piece of shit, this message brought to you by Coca-Cola (or Gillette, or Miller Lite, or Bud Lite, or Disney, etc). I don't see risk averse behavior there.
Pepsi has long found social justice adjacent marketing to be a way to pull share from the monster Coke. They were featuring endorcements from Civil Rights leaders like Ralph Bunchie in their ads decades ago.
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