The path to New Coke was quite simple, actually. Coke learned that in blind taste tests, consumers overwhelmingly preferred Pepsi to Coke, by a wide margin and repeatable across a wide range of tests. The preference was simple - Pepsi was sweeter, and in blind taste tests people overwhelmingly preferred the sweeter drink.
This hard data was seen as indicating a looming crisis and management felt the need to act and act quickly. What the data failed to show, however, was how brand aware consumers perceived the two drinks. Even though blind taste tests showed overwhelming preference for Pepsi, if you left the labels on the cans consumers overwhelmingly preferred Coke.
Coke management listened to the researchers but all parties concerned failed to understand what the research was and wasn't testing, and what conclusions one could and couldn't draw from it.
To add a little more color, the "which is sweeter" question, which drove the shift to New Coke, was as a leadership failure actually secondary to the deeper brand failing that was New Coke. Coke's brand has always been a golden-age concept, a celebration of all the good times you've had in the past drinking coke with family and friends (think of all the old timey photos and artwork you've seen in Coke ads, and it's been like that pretty much from the start). Pepsi's brand is the reverse, it's new and exciting and the future (for many years their slogan was "The choice of a new generation"). You'd think this was because Coke was the older product and Pepsi was the newer product, but they were both launched around the same time, and both are ancient compared to the age of their average consumers. When Coke became New Coke, it wasn't just making its flavor look like Pepsi's, it was committing the much bigger sin of making its brand look like Pepsi's. Given how tremendously much stronger Coke's brand was than Pepsi's, the idea of rebranding itself as "New" was the much deeper failing on Coke management's part than the flavor change, and arguably was the thing consumers actually reacted most negatively to, because it was destroying their relationship to one of the strongest brands in the world. No one wanted Coke to be New. They had Pepsi for that. They preferred Coke to be their connection to the golden age of all their past good times.
> because it was destroying their relationship to one of the strongest brands in the world. No one wanted Coke to be New. They had Pepsi for that. They preferred Coke to be their connection to the golden age of all their past good times.
I don't believe anything resembling this kind of thinking process goes through a typical customer's head, even subconsciously. It doesn't pass the smell test as a rationalization, and sounds to me like something people in advertising industry write to each other in reports to justify their high salaries.
I propose a simpler hypothesis: customers have already self-selected themselves into preferring Coke or Pepsi. New Coke didn't introduce any new value - people who would like it were already drinking Pepsi. At the same time, its existence was received as a threat by Coke customers, as a New Coke seems like something that's going to replace the good ol' Coke. People don't like change; in particular, they don't like when a product that works for them is changed, because that change is almost universally for the worse[0].
The difference between the above and what you described is that my hypothesis doesn't require from a customer to have anything other than a "Coke = cola drink that hits the 'sweet spot' for me" relationship. I don't see the reason to believe consumer brand perception to be anything more than that. Especially not consciously thinking about how a brand reminds one of the past, or something.
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[0] - Short-term. Sometimes it's worth to e.g. mix up user interfaces in software to enable further improvement. But with soft drinks, there's nothing other than short term.
I find it strange how many people on the internet are convinced ads and branding just... don't work? They obviously do. Even if you think they don't work on you (which you're probably wrong about), they work on everyone else.
No no, I think we buy the branding thing. I'm pretty sure part of the reason I have the car I do is a branding thing, etc. etc. I'm like the #1 brand sucker on the planet. But that's at the "these guys are outdoorsy", "you're sophisticated", "you're cool" level not at the "this represents classic American values vs. this is the new generation" thing. That sounds like nonsense to me.
Just clarifying that it isn't whether branding works but the shape of the working. Like, I admit being easily influenced by them, just not in that direction. Like Red Bull is cool action sports, right? But I've never had a Red Bull when I've gone skiing. Not saying branding doesn't directly modify my associations, just that the way isn't what yodon said.
Ironically (coincidentally?), I think you can apply a direct analogy between the tastes of Coke and Pepsi, and their branding. People have a preference for one drink over the other, but they can't articulate why. Most people can't tell one from the other in a blind taste test, much less describe what specifically they prefer about one over the other. They can still taste it, though, and the experts can break down the flavors and sensations to describe the differences between the two.
I suspect the branding is perceived the same way. People pick up on all of these things, and the experts have a language to describe their branding strategy, and they're very deliberate about what they do and do not include in their ads. People don't express it or notice it consciously, but they can still tell when the marketing feels "wrong" compared to the ads they've seen before.
I didn't say they don't work. They do. And in tune with the article on averages (and curse of dimensionality) on the front page now[0], I'll happily concede that different brands may work strongly on different people at different times. Hell, myself I had periods in my youth when I had fanboy-level attachment to a brand or two.
My point is that I doubt that the typical relationship with a brand is as sophisticated as 'yodon described. If it was, we'd all be falling victim to advertising bullshit much more often. So e.g. when Coca Cola airs another commercial with a grandfather pulling up coke during family supper, I believe almost everyone watching either smiles or rolls their eyes. I don't think their minds race to the memories of their family dinners, or old times, or whatever. That would be a dangerously strong emotional reaction to an ad.
Interesting, reminds me of the steady "Chrome-ification" of Firefox, something I've never asked for.
Thankfully a few things have been reversed, like the silly tab shape.
> and in blind taste tests people overwhelmingly preferred the sweeter drink.
I remember those taste test booths Pepsi would set up in shopping malls and such. Here's how they went for me:
1. They'd hand me two unmarked cups, one with Pepsi and one with Coke.
2. I'd take a sip from each, they'd ask me which I preferred.
3. I always knew which was the Coke, and would point to it.
4. They'd look away and say "Next!"
I've always preferred Coke. I prefer less sugared drinks because the sugar tends to overwhelm the flavor of the drink. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to find lightly sugared drinks today, they all taste like syrup. I drink coffee black, and just buy plain soda water and add a bit of OJ to it.
I got a sodastream while I've been working from home and using more or less syrup gives a lot of control over how sweet your drink is. If you like soda without cloying sweetness give it a shot. I've gotten a lot of value out of it.
Those blind tests are so weird. I’m not a huge soda drinker but I can tell Pepsi vs. Coke by smell, let alone taste, and I’m pretty sure I’m no super-taster. I mean yeah close clones of either might fool me (never checked) but I’m very sure I could tell those two apart without difficulty, and likely without even taking a drink.
Beyond the sweetness difference, Classic Coke has a lot more bite. It almost hurts during the first sip of a freshly opened can. Obvious if you are aware of it.
Is that why I hate plastic bottle soda? I've always chalked it up to some sort of either: (a) Taste taint from the container, where whatever they line cans with is better than the PET of the bottle, or (b) The warmer container temperature due to plastic not conducting heat as well as aluminum, causing me to think that the drink inside is warmer. (In other words, psychological issues while drinking from the plastic bottle)
When I was a kid, the absolute best was those 16oz. glass bottles with the polystyrene labels[0]. Somehow that Pepsi was colder than ice and more refreshing than any other version.
I think it is because the plastic container just isn't as strong, so they reduce the carbolic acid content. The cans are stronger, and the glass bottles the strongest.
In any case, I abandoned my Coca-Cola habit about 10 years ago to improve my health. It took about a year to get over the craving for it. I don't miss it anymore.
I would be interested to know whether they tested this WITH FOOD. If I were just drinking a few sips of some soda, I probably would prefer Pepsi. But if I'm eating almost any kind of food, I prefer Coke, because it's not so overpoweringly sweet in comparison to whatever food I'm eating. And in general I don't just crack open a soda and drink it straight, I'm usually drinking it with some food, so 90% of the soda I buy is Coke despite what would show up in too-simple market research studies as a preference for Pepsi.
Yeah, it's often mentioned too (and mentioned in the article) that people will have very different preferences for "a few sips" and "I'm going to drink a whole can of this in one sitting".
New Coke is almost a poster child of how blind taste tests sometimes can be very blind in ignoring what should be important context information in people's preferences, exactly like "how much am I drinking of this?" and "what am I pairing it with?".
Oh, from a few sips you'd definitely prefer Pepsi.
But you're right, Coke is amazing because it compliments food so damn well. There's a reason 90% or so of American restaurants use Coke, and it's not just because Pepsi owns Yum! brands, as this was the case since long before that happened.
Edit: now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if Coke contains a chemical similar to MSG that acts as a flavor enhancer for savory foods.
Another reason that restaurants (at least those with bars) prefer Coke is that Pepsi makes a terrible mixer. There's a reason that "rum and Pepsi" isn't a thing.
Also fascinating is that it was a failure/misapplication of consumer research. When testing New Coke vs their existing product people preferred the New Coke but they didn't ask the pivotal question: Would you prefer this instead of coke.
This hard data was seen as indicating a looming crisis and management felt the need to act and act quickly. What the data failed to show, however, was how brand aware consumers perceived the two drinks. Even though blind taste tests showed overwhelming preference for Pepsi, if you left the labels on the cans consumers overwhelmingly preferred Coke.
Coke management listened to the researchers but all parties concerned failed to understand what the research was and wasn't testing, and what conclusions one could and couldn't draw from it.