Black Irish
Wise Guy
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We had a fun little derailment in the Covid-19 thread about conspiracy theories. It would be fun to hear about the conspiracy theories you all either believe in or just find oddly compelling. So put on your tin foil hats and cue the theme music for "The X-Files." Here's one to start.
The conventional wisdom about the introduction of New Coke in the 80s was that Pepsi was getting increasingly popular, especially with those taste test challenge commercials. Coke created New Coke with a flavor profile that was closer to Pepsi to fight against their losing market share. It was a disaster on every level for Coca-Cola, which soon scraped New Coke and put the original Coke back out. I worked for a franchise bottling group for Coca-Cola at one point (not during the New Coke thing) and a sales rep there told me the real story. He said that Coca-Cola had been planning to change their formula for Coke for a while but knew there'd be backlash. They didn't want to necessarily make it taste like Pepsi, they just wanted to tweak the recipe a bit. I don't remember the reason he gave, maybe something to do with wanting to use more cost-effective ingredients. His story was that Coca-Cola put out New Coke which was such a big swing away from their original formula that people would forget exactly what the original Coke tasted like. So when Coca-Cola put the real Coke back out there, with the modified recipe, it would be close enough to the original version that people who had been drinking New Coke for months wouldn't know the difference. This is also the reason why the flagship soda is called Coca-Cola Classic, instead of just Coca-Cola. Since it isn't technically the original recipe, it needed a different name. I don't believe it. I support the Occam's Razor theory in this case; there are plenty of instances of big companies trying to re-invent themselves in response to a hot new competitor with terrible results. Coke wanted to be more like Pepsi, and they screwed the pooch with New Coke. At least, that's what they want you to believe, sheeple!
The conventional wisdom about the introduction of New Coke in the 80s was that Pepsi was getting increasingly popular, especially with those taste test challenge commercials. Coke created New Coke with a flavor profile that was closer to Pepsi to fight against their losing market share. It was a disaster on every level for Coca-Cola, which soon scraped New Coke and put the original Coke back out. I worked for a franchise bottling group for Coca-Cola at one point (not during the New Coke thing) and a sales rep there told me the real story. He said that Coca-Cola had been planning to change their formula for Coke for a while but knew there'd be backlash. They didn't want to necessarily make it taste like Pepsi, they just wanted to tweak the recipe a bit. I don't remember the reason he gave, maybe something to do with wanting to use more cost-effective ingredients. His story was that Coca-Cola put out New Coke which was such a big swing away from their original formula that people would forget exactly what the original Coke tasted like. So when Coca-Cola put the real Coke back out there, with the modified recipe, it would be close enough to the original version that people who had been drinking New Coke for months wouldn't know the difference. This is also the reason why the flagship soda is called Coca-Cola Classic, instead of just Coca-Cola. Since it isn't technically the original recipe, it needed a different name. I don't believe it. I support the Occam's Razor theory in this case; there are plenty of instances of big companies trying to re-invent themselves in response to a hot new competitor with terrible results. Coke wanted to be more like Pepsi, and they screwed the pooch with New Coke. At least, that's what they want you to believe, sheeple!
