The Cola Wars

from left to right "new" Coke; "new Pepsi, 2008 forward; Obama logo

Twenty four years ago today, Coca-Cola made one of the worst corporate decisions in the history of U.S. business right up there with Ford's Edsel and Microsoft Windows Vista. Seeing its market share slip to Pepsi, the Atlanta based soda giant tinkered with the formula for the world's most popular soft drink using corn sweetner and fructose to change Coke's noteworthy tart flavor to a much sweeter, blander taste. Public reaction was vicious. Loyal customers were abandoned as ever Pepsi was closer to the old Coke than this new product. This writer is a real Coca Cola fiend and loathed the new product switching to R.C. Cola and Jolt (if the caffeine jitters weren't too extreme) for the duration.

On July 10, 1985, Peter Jennings interupted regular programming to announce, Coke was returning to its original flavor, though it would be called Coca Cola classic, the soda guzzling public got its old friend back though it wasn't entirely old Coke using corn syrup and fructose, but few would dectect a difference, it was "the real thing."

Coca Cola maintained a two Coke strategy for a few more years eventually rebranding the new formula as Coke II, but it was unceremoniously dumped by the end of 2002. Likewise, the "Classic" notation on the original flavor continued to grow smaller. Today's product is still Coca Cola "Classic" but who'd ever notice or say so.

Meanwhile, Pepsi has done something that has nothing to do with the taste of its product, but for a patriotic traditional American, is action is equally distasteful. Always claiming to be pitching to the new generation, Pepsico attempted to coattail on "Obama Mania" changing its logo to look more like like Obama campaign logo. Now, what will Jeffrey Immelt do to GE's logo to show how much his once great corporation has swallowed the Obama Kool Aid, er uhm, Pepsi that it is.

In the meantime, have a "Coke and a smile." :-)