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Michelle Cherry
New Coke – Failure
Coca cola is truly an American classic, it’s globally the most recognized brand, and till
this day it continues to reign as a leader in the beverage industry. Coke has both the most
successful and one of the worst marketing strategies of all time. This company has always
maintained it originality in it’s long time battle with it’s top competitor Pepsi cola. “Coca-Cola
had always been ahead. Shortly after World War II, Time magazine was already celebrating
Coke’s ‘peaceful near-conquest of the world.’ In the late 1950s, Coke outsold Pepsi by a ratio of
more than five to one. However, during the next decade Pepsi repositioned itself as a youth
brand.” (Bhasin) The loyalty instilled in coke lovers was unforeseen in the company. “As the
Pepsi Challenge had highlighted millions of times over, Coke could always be defeated when it
came down to taste. This seemed to be confirmed by the success of Diet Coke which was closer
to Pepsi in terms of flavor.” (Bhasin)
The well known Pepsi taste challenge was losing coke a lot of customers and they were
concerned about their overall imagine and the quality of their flagship product. “if Coca-Cola
was to stay ahead of Pepsi-Cola it couldn’t have two directly competing products on the shelves
at the same time. It therefore decided to scrap the original Coca-Cola and introduced New Coke
in its place.” New coke was intended to be the answer to it’s losing results in the well known
Pepsi taste challenges. “On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola, amid much publicity, attempted to change
the formula of the drink with "New Coke.” (Neville) Coke was blind to the fact that their product
was a solid one people had been accustomed to and loved for it’s flavor despite the Pepsi taste
challenges. “Follow-up taste tests revealed most consumers preferred the taste of New Coke to
both Coke and Pepsi.” ) “research continued in 1983, as Coca-Cola sought to develop a sweeter
cola to rival Pepsi and increase its market share among teenagers.” (Salyer) “operating under
extreme security, marketing executives began to develop an advertising campaign for the new,
sweeter cola. Hastily, two research companies conducted market research regarding the new
formula. Preliminary blind taste tests indicated that Americans preferred the new, sweeter cola.
However, only 20 percent of the taste tests conducted used the final formula.” (Salyer) Research
missed how people felt about the original coca cola formula. “New Coke was introduced and a
