Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
It's been a little while since I've had a post, but a few recent threads about past edition changes and (of course) the upcoming edition change had me thinking about the ways that we talk about the need for change, and mostly had me thinking about the ways in which we (the consumers of D&D) often misunderstand the forces that drive these decisions. More specifically, I was thinking about one of the most well-known and discussed "changes" of a brand, and what lessons we might learn from that. Of course, given that this occurred almost 40 years ago, the lesson (while evergreen) might not be as well-known to everyone as it used to be.
What am I talking about? New Coke.
The question is - what is the lesson, if any, that we can learn from New Coke, and what might it mean for edition changes in D&D?
1. What is New Coke, and Why Did the Coca Cola Company Decide to Make a "New Edition" of Coke?
Most letters were love letters until they were not.
To understand this dynamic, we have to go back to the history of the "Cola Wars." In the beginning, there was void. And from this void, we had Coke (Coca Cola) and Pepsi (Pepsi Cola). And lo, these two mighty behemoths battled it out for supremacy, because Colas are like Highlanders ... there can be only ONE.
Anyway, Coke had long been the Yankees to Pepsi's Detroit Tigers. Or, if you aren't into the sports, Coke was the Taylor Swift to Pepsi's Katy Perry. Coke was number 1, and Pepsi was always the afterthought. And that had long been true- true for reasons of distribution, of marketing, of brand power. But Pepsi was a fierce competitor, and starting in the 1960s, began to pivot to heavily marketing to a more youthful demographic. Slowly this began to pay off - and it accelerated with the the '70s "Pepsi Challenge" ad campaign, showing people blind tasting colas, and preferring Pepsi. By the early 1980s, as difficult as it might be to believe now (with Coke back to dominating Pepsi, albeit in a market that is moving away from cola), Coke was in danger of losing its position. In fact, Coke's leading position at that time was only due to distribution deals it had- not due to retail sales. The company was seriously rattled by the prospect of losing its position to Pepsi.
Therefore, the Coca Cola company did what they believed to be the reasonable thing- they came out with the "new edition" of Coke. As a large company, they made sure that they tested the heck out of the product, repeatedly working on the formula and getting it "just right." They wanted to make sure to be able to rebut Pepsi's claims, so they made it sweeter. They performed over 200,000 taste tests to make sure that it tasted better than the old coke. And then they rolled it out with a massive marketing campaign, getting rid of the old coke and introducing the world to the amazing ... "New Coke" on April 23, 1985.
And it was a runaway success, right? Um .... not quite.
2. Why did New Coke Fail?
The two of us could not communicate, as we had grown up viewing completely different memes.
In less than three (3) months, Coca Cola announced that the old coke (rebranded as "Coke Classic") would return. While New Coke lingered for some time, eventually rebranded as "Coke II," it was effectively dead the same year it came out. So what happened?
There were a number of small things, and one large thing. For example, all those taste tests they ran? It was people taking a small sip. There's a big difference between taking a small sip, and drinking a can of a beverage. Something that tastes great in a small sip might not taste as good when you're halfway through the can. People can, and have, argued that the whole tasting process misunderstood the way that people drank the beverage, and that having the cola be "less sweet" was actually a benefit when people were drinking it in the customary way- which is to say, 8 to 12 oz (or, if you're a real 'Murkian, in a Big Gulp of 32 oz or more). Or, because of the secrecy of the rollout, Coke didn't properly warn their distributors ... who weren't happy with the change. Or that the new advertising muddled their message- after all, they had previously attacked Pepsi for being too sweet- the previous year, they had a massive ad campaign starring Bill Cosby (OOF!) praising Coke for being less sweet than Pepsi.
But all of this was tied into one very large thing that, in retrospect, it seems impossible that The Powers That Be at Coke missed- Coca Cola (like all colas) is really just flavored sugar water. What mattered when it came to Coke wasn't even so much the exact taste, as it was the brand association with that taste. People had a powerful investment in that brand- feelings of nostalgia, feelings of loyalty, and ... well, feelings. Heck, it's a storied part of Americana that Coca Cola has a "secret recipe" that only a few people know, and that the two employees who know the complete formula aren't allowed to travel together (I would note that this is more myth than reality, but myth is a powerful part of branding). When Coke announced that they were changing the very essence of Coke, they triggered a powerful backlash - because people cared about the brand.
The change was front-page news. People bought out the stocks of the "old Coke" quickly and began campaigns to bring back the old Coke. The response was overwhelming and unprecedented. To its credit, the company quickly changed course and release "Coca Cola Classic" within three months, and by the end of the 1985, Classic was outselling New Coke and Pepsi combined. In a weird way, the terrible mistake of New Coke was the best thing that could have happened to Coke, as the Coca Cola Company remembered what it was selling, and people remembered why they drank Coke. I think the following three quotes best sum up the debacle-
We did not know what we were selling. We are not selling a soft drink. We are selling a little tiny piece of people's lives.
-Coke executive.
The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people. The passion for original Coca-Cola — and that is the word for it, passion — was something that caught us by surprise. It is a wonderful American mystery, a lovely American enigma, and you cannot measure it any more than you can measure love, pride or patriotism.
-Coke executive.
I think, by the end of their nightmare, they figured out who they really are. Caretakers. They can’t change the taste of their flagship brand. They can’t change its imagery. All they can do is defend the heritage they nearly abandoned in 1985.
-Pepsi CEO.
3. Can We Apply Anything from New Coke to D&D?
I slowly began to realize that the room was very drunk indeed, and kept flinging people at me.
This is where things get a little more interesting. Stewardship of a brand is always something that is fraught and complicated- just ask Kevin Feige. Brands, by their very nature, have built-in advantages, because people will already have built-in opinions and emotional attachments about the brand. As you will often see stated on this board, WoTC could release anything, and slap a D&D label on it, and it will sell.
But that's only looking at one side of the coin. The other side of the coin isn't so shiny. Those built-in expectations also include emotional attachments. People will both expect and demand certain things. If you're designing for Louis Vuitton, you can't decide to partner with Target for some cheap ready-to-wear items for the masses. If you're making a new Star Trek show, you can't decide to make the Vulcans all emo. If you're making a new Star Wars, well ... good luck with that. Anyway, you get the idea. And that's what Coke learned, or remembered- they were the stewards of a brand, not the designers of better-tasting sugar water. They didn't need to run more taste tests, they needed to figure out how to get polar bears to hit people's nostalgia feels.
Similar concerns arise in the context of D&D. Just because something is "better" in terms of design, doesn't mean it's necessarily right in terms of D&D's brand. That doesn't mean that D&D can never change; obviously, it has seen numerous changes, both large and small, in the fifty years it has been around. But it does mean that changes have to be carefully considered. D&D is always in a conversation with itself, with its fans, and with its past.
When looking at the past edition changes I would argue that this lesson is clear, and is being applied to the proposed changes to 5e. The changes that are proposed are (small-c) conservative, and while this is not ideal in terms of making the ideal best game ever, this is necessary in terms of continuing the brand. After all, they don't want to have to release "D&D Classic" in a few months.
What am I talking about? New Coke.
The question is - what is the lesson, if any, that we can learn from New Coke, and what might it mean for edition changes in D&D?
1. What is New Coke, and Why Did the Coca Cola Company Decide to Make a "New Edition" of Coke?
Most letters were love letters until they were not.
To understand this dynamic, we have to go back to the history of the "Cola Wars." In the beginning, there was void. And from this void, we had Coke (Coca Cola) and Pepsi (Pepsi Cola). And lo, these two mighty behemoths battled it out for supremacy, because Colas are like Highlanders ... there can be only ONE.
Anyway, Coke had long been the Yankees to Pepsi's Detroit Tigers. Or, if you aren't into the sports, Coke was the Taylor Swift to Pepsi's Katy Perry. Coke was number 1, and Pepsi was always the afterthought. And that had long been true- true for reasons of distribution, of marketing, of brand power. But Pepsi was a fierce competitor, and starting in the 1960s, began to pivot to heavily marketing to a more youthful demographic. Slowly this began to pay off - and it accelerated with the the '70s "Pepsi Challenge" ad campaign, showing people blind tasting colas, and preferring Pepsi. By the early 1980s, as difficult as it might be to believe now (with Coke back to dominating Pepsi, albeit in a market that is moving away from cola), Coke was in danger of losing its position. In fact, Coke's leading position at that time was only due to distribution deals it had- not due to retail sales. The company was seriously rattled by the prospect of losing its position to Pepsi.
Therefore, the Coca Cola company did what they believed to be the reasonable thing- they came out with the "new edition" of Coke. As a large company, they made sure that they tested the heck out of the product, repeatedly working on the formula and getting it "just right." They wanted to make sure to be able to rebut Pepsi's claims, so they made it sweeter. They performed over 200,000 taste tests to make sure that it tasted better than the old coke. And then they rolled it out with a massive marketing campaign, getting rid of the old coke and introducing the world to the amazing ... "New Coke" on April 23, 1985.
And it was a runaway success, right? Um .... not quite.
2. Why did New Coke Fail?
The two of us could not communicate, as we had grown up viewing completely different memes.
In less than three (3) months, Coca Cola announced that the old coke (rebranded as "Coke Classic") would return. While New Coke lingered for some time, eventually rebranded as "Coke II," it was effectively dead the same year it came out. So what happened?
There were a number of small things, and one large thing. For example, all those taste tests they ran? It was people taking a small sip. There's a big difference between taking a small sip, and drinking a can of a beverage. Something that tastes great in a small sip might not taste as good when you're halfway through the can. People can, and have, argued that the whole tasting process misunderstood the way that people drank the beverage, and that having the cola be "less sweet" was actually a benefit when people were drinking it in the customary way- which is to say, 8 to 12 oz (or, if you're a real 'Murkian, in a Big Gulp of 32 oz or more). Or, because of the secrecy of the rollout, Coke didn't properly warn their distributors ... who weren't happy with the change. Or that the new advertising muddled their message- after all, they had previously attacked Pepsi for being too sweet- the previous year, they had a massive ad campaign starring Bill Cosby (OOF!) praising Coke for being less sweet than Pepsi.
But all of this was tied into one very large thing that, in retrospect, it seems impossible that The Powers That Be at Coke missed- Coca Cola (like all colas) is really just flavored sugar water. What mattered when it came to Coke wasn't even so much the exact taste, as it was the brand association with that taste. People had a powerful investment in that brand- feelings of nostalgia, feelings of loyalty, and ... well, feelings. Heck, it's a storied part of Americana that Coca Cola has a "secret recipe" that only a few people know, and that the two employees who know the complete formula aren't allowed to travel together (I would note that this is more myth than reality, but myth is a powerful part of branding). When Coke announced that they were changing the very essence of Coke, they triggered a powerful backlash - because people cared about the brand.
The change was front-page news. People bought out the stocks of the "old Coke" quickly and began campaigns to bring back the old Coke. The response was overwhelming and unprecedented. To its credit, the company quickly changed course and release "Coca Cola Classic" within three months, and by the end of the 1985, Classic was outselling New Coke and Pepsi combined. In a weird way, the terrible mistake of New Coke was the best thing that could have happened to Coke, as the Coca Cola Company remembered what it was selling, and people remembered why they drank Coke. I think the following three quotes best sum up the debacle-
We did not know what we were selling. We are not selling a soft drink. We are selling a little tiny piece of people's lives.
-Coke executive.
The simple fact is that all the time and money and skill poured into consumer research on the new Coca-Cola could not measure or reveal the deep and abiding emotional attachment to original Coca-Cola felt by so many people. The passion for original Coca-Cola — and that is the word for it, passion — was something that caught us by surprise. It is a wonderful American mystery, a lovely American enigma, and you cannot measure it any more than you can measure love, pride or patriotism.
-Coke executive.
I think, by the end of their nightmare, they figured out who they really are. Caretakers. They can’t change the taste of their flagship brand. They can’t change its imagery. All they can do is defend the heritage they nearly abandoned in 1985.
-Pepsi CEO.
3. Can We Apply Anything from New Coke to D&D?
I slowly began to realize that the room was very drunk indeed, and kept flinging people at me.
This is where things get a little more interesting. Stewardship of a brand is always something that is fraught and complicated- just ask Kevin Feige. Brands, by their very nature, have built-in advantages, because people will already have built-in opinions and emotional attachments about the brand. As you will often see stated on this board, WoTC could release anything, and slap a D&D label on it, and it will sell.
But that's only looking at one side of the coin. The other side of the coin isn't so shiny. Those built-in expectations also include emotional attachments. People will both expect and demand certain things. If you're designing for Louis Vuitton, you can't decide to partner with Target for some cheap ready-to-wear items for the masses. If you're making a new Star Trek show, you can't decide to make the Vulcans all emo. If you're making a new Star Wars, well ... good luck with that. Anyway, you get the idea. And that's what Coke learned, or remembered- they were the stewards of a brand, not the designers of better-tasting sugar water. They didn't need to run more taste tests, they needed to figure out how to get polar bears to hit people's nostalgia feels.
Similar concerns arise in the context of D&D. Just because something is "better" in terms of design, doesn't mean it's necessarily right in terms of D&D's brand. That doesn't mean that D&D can never change; obviously, it has seen numerous changes, both large and small, in the fifty years it has been around. But it does mean that changes have to be carefully considered. D&D is always in a conversation with itself, with its fans, and with its past.
When looking at the past edition changes I would argue that this lesson is clear, and is being applied to the proposed changes to 5e. The changes that are proposed are (small-c) conservative, and while this is not ideal in terms of making the ideal best game ever, this is necessary in terms of continuing the brand. After all, they don't want to have to release "D&D Classic" in a few months.
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