Happy 25th birthday, New Coke!

[deskslave]

Before my time, or at least my soda-drinking time.

http://www.ajc.com/business/25-years-since-coca-484445.html

 

[kingcreole]

I was 8 when New Coke came out, and I still remember my dad making fun of New Coke. I also recall going to a Food 4 Less, and literally seeing New Coke cases stacked to the ceiling.

One of the great Epic Fails.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Made Bill Cosby look like a damn fool.

 

[steveu]

One of the great anecdotes about New Coke was in the book written about Coca-Cola a couple years ago. Apparently Pepsi's CEO drank some of the product and it tasted just like... Pepsi. My own mother was a Pepsi drinker back then and she drank New Coke for that very reason.

Boy, was that product a bomb.

 

[Armchair_QB]

For some reason when I think of New Coke I'm reminded of Max Headroom.

 

[KJIM]

One of the great anecdotes about New Coke was in the book written about Coca-Cola a couple years ago. Apparently Pepsi's CEO drank some of the product and it tasted just like... Pepsi. .

That was the whole point of New Coke, though. Pepsi had been running the "Pepsi Taste Test" and over and over the results showed people preferring the taste of Pepsi to Coke - I forget the margin, but it was big.

Coke wanted to change its product to taste like Pepsi. They forgot about that little thing called brand loyalty.

 

[Oggiedoggie]

Here's my one and only great conspiracy theory.

After the New Coke failed and they decided to go back to the old Coke, they really didn't. The real old Coke was made with sugar.

When they supposedly went back to the "old" Coke, it was sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.

They pulled a fast one.

I drink Diet Coke because I don't like the taste/mouth feel of the new old Coke.

Mexicans are smarter than we are.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I remember taking the Pepsi taste test a few times. Nothing like a free drink of soda to spice your day.

There were a ton of commercials about the New Coke, and once I drank it, I wondered what the fuss was about.

 

[Starman]

Coke's history of introducing new versions of the flagship drink is pretty bizarre.

They wanted to bring in a diet cola in the early 1960s, but the stuff they came up with tasted like such **** they didn't want to attach the "Coca-Cola" name to it, so they came up with TAB ("The Alternate Beverage").

Finally, 20 years later, they came up with a diet cola formulation they deemed adequate to call Diet Coke, then some genius came up with the bright idea: "Hey, let's completely change over the formula for Coca-Cola (by far the most popular soft drink in the world) so it tastes like our new untested diet drink."

Which of course was developed primarily to taste mostly like ... Pepsi. :o :o

It only took them 20 more years for some wizard to come up with a real brainstorm: "Hey, ya know, here's an idea -- why don't we come up with a diet drink that actually tastes like, uhhh... Coca-Cola??"

::) ::) ::)

 

[playthrough]

I'm a huge Coke Zero fan, but what I can't figure out is its distribution. It's marketed heavily, but how can you not get a Coke Zero at McDonald's or most chain restaurants?

Also, please tell me the AJC did more than just six graphs on "perhaps the biggest marketing blunder of the century."

 

[Starman]

I'm a huge Coke Zero fan, but what I can't figure out is its distribution. It's marketed heavily, but how can you not get a Coke Zero at McDonald's or most chain restaurants?

Fountain machinery at fast-food joints has a limited number of nozzles. Unless or until Zero overtakes Diet Coke or one of the other flavors in popularity, or one of the major franchise chains retools with fountain machinery with more nozzles, it will be hard for it to break onto the Mickey D's menu.

I would guess the sales of Zero may be getting close to those of Diet Coke, although that might just be my personal taste.

 

[playthrough]

At the Chick-fil-A's I've been to, they've got a ton of nozzles. You can get Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke, plus lots of the other stuff. I've never seen that anywhere else.

 

[Starman]

At the Chick-fil-A's I've been to, they've got a ton of nozzles. You can get Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke, plus lots of the other stuff. I've never seen that anywhere else.

I know some of the newer fountain machines have lots of nozzles, you can almost mix whatever custom flavor you want. But you've got to store the syrup tanks somewhere, which takes up floor space, which is the real killer for fast-food joints.

 

[playthrough]

At the Chick-fil-A's I've been to, they've got a ton of nozzles. You can get Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke, plus lots of the other stuff. I've never seen that anywhere else.

I know some of the newer fountain machines have lots of nozzles, you can almost mix whatever custom flavor you want. But you've got to store the syrup tanks somewhere, which takes up floor space, which is the real killer for fast-food joints.

And you have to stir the tanks. [/apollo13]

 

[Second Thoughts]

Shouldn't this also mark whenever the date was for the death of New Coke? Which was putrid btw. I remember myself and others hoarding regular Coke for months in fear it would give way to that Pepsi-tasting New Coke.

And I remember always doubting the Pepsi taste test commercials. I got to do that once and when the girl poured the drinks I said "That one's the Coke." I could tell by the fizz. She said "Well, we don't want to know which one you think is Coke, but which one tastes better." And I said "That'll be the Coke." I did the "test" and the Pepsi was Pepsi and the Coke was Coke and it tasted better, no two ways about it. I call sham.

My theory is still that the Coke CEO lost a bet with the Pepsi CEO or someone in power and that led to New Coke. What a disasterous marketing idea.

 

[deskslave]

At the Chick-fil-A's I've been to, they've got a ton of nozzles. You can get Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke, plus lots of the other stuff. I've never seen that anywhere else.

For a while, the two nearest Chick-fil-A's to me, both in malls, didn't have Diet Coke. They only had Caffeine Free Diet Coke. Annoying as hell that was, though the diet lemonade is better anyway.

And Coke Zero sucks. For someone who can only drink Diet Coke and therefore knows nothing else, Coke Zero has the annoying habit of tasting exactly like Coke. Which, I will concede, for most people is a good thing.

 

[Sic semper tyrannis]

Before my time, or at least my soda-drinking time.

http://www.ajc.com/business/25-years-since-coca-484445.html

I was at an age when I really felt outrage that something I loved had been changed. I was completely a Coke person - couldn't stand Pepsi despite the wholly subtle difference - and remember feeling discombobulated with the change, and overjoyed at the announcement they were coming back with "Classic" Coke.
I don't drink Coke much at all between October and April (winter months north of the Mason-Dixon) but feel orgasmic when consuming a cold can in the summer

 

[Moderator1]

I love Coke Zero. A lot.

 

[kingcreole]

Another Coke Zero fan here. Prefer it to Diet Coke.

 

[Starman]

At the Chick-fil-A's I've been to, they've got a ton of nozzles. You can get Coke, Coke Zero, Diet Coke or Caffeine Free Diet Coke, plus lots of the other stuff. I've never seen that anywhere else.

I know some of the newer fountain machines have lots of nozzles, you can almost mix whatever custom flavor you want. But you've got to store the syrup tanks somewhere, which takes up floor space, which is the real killer for fast-food joints.

And you have to stir the tanks. [/apollo13]

Atlanta, we've had a problem here...