THE NEW COKE
Pepsico began a major promotional campaign in 1975 for Pepsi-Cola, conducting blind taste tests with American soft drink consumers . The highlight of the TV ads came with the unveiling of the unmarked samples, showing Pepsi to be the favorite and participants expressing a level of astonishment equal to that of the OJ verdict.
The "Pepsi Challenge" and the proliferation of new rivals and various spinoffs seemed to contribute to Coca-Cola's10% decline in market share during the early 1980s. As a response to this downturn, New Coke launched in 1985 and to this day is considered as a marketing disaster matched only by the 1957 Edsel.
With the introduction of New Coke, the original Coca-Cola with its 99 year-old recipe was no longer available in retail outlets. The New Coke had performed well in taste tests but no one at Coca-Cola Company foresaw the backlash that unravelled. The company received over forty-thousand written complaints (ten years prior to email). TV news segments covered the new product being poured down drains and big screen ads for New Coke being roundly booed at the Astrodome. Bottles of the original coke were demanding exorbitant prices between private parties.
Seventy-seven days after the release of New Coke, the Coca-Cola Company began selling the original version, now packaged as Coca-Cola Classic. Both products were available until 2002 when New Coke, having been renamed Coke II, was discontinued.
Strangely enough, the massive blood letting resulted in what amounted to countless millions of dollars worth of free advertising and the brand benefited with a boost in market share.
Conspiracy theories soon formed asserting that the company had engineered the whole affair. The New Coke was developed as an inferior product to fuel the demand for bringing back the original along with a surge in sales. A coke company executive's reaction to this was "We're not that dumb and we're not that smart". Which is a great sound bite but may never have taken place since sources can't agree on who said it.
A separate motive was attributed to the Coca-Cola Company wanting to increase profits by switching from cane sugar to cheaper high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. By removing the original coke from the marketplace for a few months until introducing Classic Coke, the altered taste would go undetected.
There was also a splinter group that claimed the change was demanded by the DEA to eliminate the last vestiges of cocaine that remained as part of the original recipe.
Conspiracy theories that counter the mainstream are normally labeled immediately as hogwash and cited for failing to produce credible evidence. To me, the New Coke saga was typical in that it definitely sounded a bit far-fetched, yet no more so than what passes for news recently.
I'm curious if anyone asked the Coca-Cola Company to explain how they managed to get Coca-Cola Classic, a product they had no prior intention of selling, onto retailer's shelves in 2 months. Within that time frame they created from scratch a new brand, packaging and marketing materials in full compliance with federal and state regulatory agencies including the U.S. Patent Office and the FDA. Then without adding any production staff, both New Coke and Coca-Cola Classic were produced, alternating the closely guarded respective secret syrups and sweeteners through the system for the two products and into the appropriate containers utilizing the existing production/bottling infrastructure. Probably most of the 700,000 employees needed to be brought up to date and surely some training was given for those at the 950 production/bottling facilities. Then there's the matter of getting both the New Coke and Coca-Cola Classic shipped to 8,000 local distributors followed by deliveries to countless retailers and 16 million vending machines.
I find it equally difficult to accept either the conspiracy theory or the company's explanation. I do think a company can retool quickly but if you've ever dealt with the U.S. Patent Office or the FDA, you know nothing's going to happen in 77 days.