Description
Coca-Cola was losing ground to Pepsi. In blind taste tests, people picked Pepsi, and Coca-Cola's own tests said the same. So the company built a sweeter recipe and ran 190,000 blind taste tests. The new version beat both Pepsi and the original Coke.
New Coke went on sale on April 23, 1985. Within weeks the company was getting about 5,000 angry calls a day, and by June about 8,000. On July 11, 79 days after the launch, Coca-Cola brought back the original as Coca-Cola Classic. It quickly outsold New Coke and soon regained its place as the top-selling cola.
One reading of what went wrong: the research never asked how people would feel if the original disappeared. A sip tells you what tastes better. It does not tell you what people are afraid to lose.
#NewCoke #BusinessHistory #MarketingFacts