New Coke
Submitted Monday, August 9, 2010 - 5:27:44 PM by Klaitu
Greetings, Readers! I know it's been quite some time since I've posted anything unique, but here's something I've got for you that's new.. or rather old. It combines 3 of my favorite things: Science, History, and Soda.. so without more introduction, let's take a look at something strange that happened way back in the year 1985, let's look at the weirdness of "New Coke".
In the early 1980's, the price of sugar increased causing soda makers to swap the sugar in their forumlas for High Fructose Corn Syurp, which was both cheaper and sweeter. The last holdout was Coca-Cola, whose formula had not varied since the 1930's (when it sought to become kosher).
For reasons known only to them, the Coke people decided that as long as they were changing their formula to put HFCS in, they might as well engineer an entirely new soda. To that end they brought in taste tests and focus groups and market data and they crafted the most perfect beverage ever devised by the hands of men. This beverage would end up becoming "New Coke".
It's not like they didn't throw some money into this decision.. based on their taste tests, the overwhelming majority of people preferred the new formula to the old formula, so the go-ahead was given to switcn the Coke product line into "New Coke" which made the original Coke entirely unavailable.
The result? Well, it was an interesting study in group dynamics because the New Coke was met with a tremendous backlash. Everyone tried it, and lots of people liked it, but even the people who liked it wouldn't buy it because the vocal minority became so vocal that "New Coke" became "uncool". Nobody would buy it, and the campaign was such a disaster that it only lasted for 77 days.
So, what went wrong? The taste testers loved it, the focus groups loved it, and even consumers loved it.. why didn't anyone buy it? They overlooked some important taste tester data: when people picked the flavor they liked the best, and that flavor turned out to be NOT their favorite soda, they got pissed off. Yeah, that's right. People prefer drinking stuff they like less because it is associated with tradition and branding. It turns out that the outside of the can is more important to consumers than the inside of the can.
Quite an oddity in human behavior, wouldn't you say? It explains a lot about how humans think, and why sometimes our society makes stupid decisions, even though we know those decisions are stupid when we made them.
In the end, Coke released "New Coke" as "Coke" and the old coke became "Coca Cola Classic". New Coke was rebranded as Coke 2 in 1992, and was discontinued in 2002. Coca Cola Classic got its original name back in 2009, so now when you drink Coke, you're drinking the 1930's forumlation, except with Corn Syurp instead of sugar.