HISTORY's Moment in Media: The Return of Coca-Cola Classic

It was the death knell for New Coke which had launched with great fanfare only 79 days earlier It was also the beginning of the end of one of the worst selfinflicted marketing disasters in American corporate history In the end though the blunder served its own marketing purpose It reminded Americans of their emotional connection with the traditional taste of CocaCola it drove a boost in sales and it helped the brand cement its position as the number one soft drink in the countryIn fact the real risk that The CocaCola Company could lose that title was what initially drove the radical move of changing the cola39s iconic flavor and topsecret recipeCoke was developed in 1886 by an Atlanta pharmacist who then sold his special formula to another Atlantan an entrepreneur named Asa G Candler This was a time long before supermarkets or most mass production sodas were predominantly sold at soda fountains in small local pharmacies Thanks to Candler39s aggressive crew of salesmen soda fountains across the country were soon selling CocaCola By 1895 it was available in every state in the union in both big cities and smalltown pharmaciesThe transformation of America after World War II also altered the softdrink business People moved to the suburbs in huge numbers and supermarkets began to replace smallscale independent grocers offering a vastly wider variety of choices That made it easier for rivals like PepsiCola to gain market share In 1948 Coke owned 60 percent of its market by 1984 it was down to 218 percent And Pepsi had grown its share to 188 percentThat worried CocaCola executives who saw where the trend lines were going and could not afford to lose their number one status They also were egged on by Pepsi39s wildly successful Pepsi Challenge ad campaign launched in 1975 which kicked off the socalled quotcola warsquot Years of TV commercials featured blind taste tests in which regular Americans picked their favorite drink and then learned it was Pepsi Pepsi39s recipe had more sugar than Coke39s and people preferred the sweeter sodaSpooked by the results The CocaCola Company got to work Internal research nearly 100000 more blind taste tests they said reached the same conclusion sweeter was more popular At New Coke39s press kickoff held at Lincoln Center in Manhattan CocaCola chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta described the new recipe as quotsmoother rounder yet bolder a more harmonious flavorquot What he didn39t say was that it tasted more like PepsiAnd what he could not have predicted was that America would rebel In fact he had predicted the opposite quotSome may choose to call this the biggest single marketing move in the history of the packaged goods business We simply call it the surest move ever madequotThe CocaCola Company39s stock price dropped Pepsi took out newspaper ads declaring victory in the cola wars Angry calls started rolling into CocaCola headquarters and to their network of independent bottlers At the peak of the cola wars Atlanta HQ reported 8000 calls per day Protest groups sprung up with names like Old Cola Drinkers of America Devotees began stockpiling the cans and bottles they could still find of the old CokeIt was clear that The CocaCola Company had miscalculated One problem was that because the recipe development of New Coke was a topsecret project all those taste tests simply asked whether people preferred one taste to another but never considered the drinker39s emotional or nostalgic connection to the old CocaCola Another theory is that the consumer research didn39t consider how people actually drink CocaCola a sweeter sip might be the top pick in a very small dose but in a tall glass and alongside a meal it could be overwhelmingWithin weeks it was clear that it was time for a retreat The old recipe dubbed CocaCola Classic was pulled out of its bank vault and relaunched on that July afternoon New Coke lived on for a bit as Coke II and was eventually discontinued Reminded of how much they liked the old standby Americans started buying CocaCola Classic in greater numbers and market share rebounded Today The CocaCola Company across all its brands is the biggest marketer in its industry with about 4 billion of ad spend each year It also controls about 43 percent of the softdrink market CocaCola Classic is still number oneBecause of that ultimate success there have long been rumors that the New Coke launch was a marketing stunt a brilliant fakeout A careful review of the history shows that it wasn39t the case at all Or as the company39s thenpresident Donald Keough once commented quotSome critics will say CocaCola made a marketing mistake Some cynics will say we planned the whole thing The truth is we are not that dumb and we are not that smartquotClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: The Return of Coca-Cola Classic

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