Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 5027655" data-attributes="member: 25619">No kidding.  I'll leave this as my last post on this subject.My claims: (a)  New Coke was a massive product launch failure, due to a mass consumer reaction against it.  In the Coca-Cola Company's the launch of New Coke caused a "firestorm of consumer protest".(b)  That this product launch disaster is so well-known in popular culture that "New Coke" is now synonymous with "business blunder".In contrast, NoMan claims only a "vocal minority" opposed New Coke.My sources:Coca-Cola Company:<a href="http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/heritage/cokelore_newcoke.html" target="_blank">New Coke: History of New Coke: The Coca-Cola Company</a>Coke's own words prove my claims at least to my satisfaction:-- "spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen"-- "firestorm of consumer protest"-- "the story that the "old" Coca-Cola was returning to store shelves led two network newscasts and made the front page of virtually every major newspaper."Snopes urban myth debunking site:<a href="http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/newcoke.asp" target="_blank">snopes.com: New Coke Origin</a>MSNBC "New Coke and other marketing disasters"  <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7209828" target="_blank">New Coke and other marketing fiascoes - U.S. news- msnbc.com</a>Key quotes from the Coca-Company Company:"To hear some tell it, April 23, 1985, was a day that will live in marketing infamy.That's the day The Coca-Cola Company took arguably the biggest risk in consumer goods history, announcing that it was changing the formula for the world's most popular soft drink, and spawning consumer angst the likes of which no business has ever seen.The Coca-Cola Company introduced reformulated Coca-Cola®, often referred to as "new Coke®," marking the first formula change in 99 years. The company didn't set out to create the firestorm of consumer protest that ensued; instead, The Coca-Cola Company intended to re-energize its Coca-Cola brand and the cola category in its largest market, the United States.That firestorm ended with the return of the original formula, now called Coca-Cola classic®, a few months later.. . . The fabled secret formula for Coca-Cola was changed, adopting a formula preferred in taste tests of nearly 200,000 consumers.. . . The events of the spring and summer of '85 -- pundits blasting the "marketing blunder of the century," consumers hoarding the "old" Coke, calls of protests by the thousands -- changed forever The Coca-Cola Company's thinking.. . . Calls flooded in not just to the 800-GET-COKE phone line, but to Coca-Cola offices across the United States. By June 1985, The Coca-Cola Company was getting 1,500 calls a day on its consumer hotline, compared with 400 a day before the taste change. People seemed to hold any Coca-Cola employee -- from security officers at our headquarters building to their neighbors who worked for Coke -- personally responsible for the change.Mr. Goizueta received a letter addressed to "Chief Dodo, The Coca-Cola Company." He often said he was more upset that it was actually delivered to him! Another person wrote to him asking for his autograph -- because, in years to come, the signature of "one of the dumbest executives in American business history" would be worth a fortune.. . . the story that the "old" Coca-Cola was returning to store shelves led two network newscasts and made the front page of virtually every major newspaper. Consumers applauded the decision. In just two days after the announcement of Coca-Cola classic, The Coca-Cola Company received 31,600 telephone calls on the hotline. . . . Later, the name of the new taste of Coca-Cola was changed to Coke II; the product is no longer available in the United States."These claims were countered by NoMan, who said only a "vocal minority" disliked New Coke, and that the vocal minority derailed a product that most people preferred.  His evidence is that in taste tests, people preferred New Coke.NoMan is correct that the taste tests revealed a preference for New Coke IN SIP TASTE TESTS, but he, like Coca-Cola Company in making their spectacular flop, is misinterpreting the sip taste tests as revealing consumer's WHOLE BEVERAGE CONSUMPTION PREFERENCES.The problem is that what people prefer in a sip taste test is different from what they prefer in a full-sized drink, and over time.  Which is why harsh, acidic Coca-Cola still outsells the sweeter, blander Pepsi.  Citations and marketing data on that below.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Challenge" target="_blank">Pepsi Challenge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</a>"The challenge takes the form of a taste test. At malls, shopping centers and other public locations, a Pepsi representative sets up a table with two blank cups: one containing Pepsi and one with Coca-Cola. Shoppers are encouraged to taste both colas, and then select which drink they prefer. Then the representative reveals the two bottles so the taster can see whether they preferred Coke or Pepsi. The results of the test leaned toward a consensus that Pepsi was preferred by more Americans.. . . In his book, Blink, author Malcolm Gladwell ascribes the success of Pepsi over Coca-Cola in these tests to being a result of the nature of "sip tests", which would fail to account for the cloying effect of excessive sweetness and glutamate, and a complementary (but counter-intuitive) long-term preference for an item – disregarding situations such as the Pepsi Challenge, in which it would consistently lose in blind sip-test comparisons. That is, a blind-sip test may believe that a less-sweet drink tastes better in the long run."<a href="http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/237023/pepsi_vs_coke_the_battle_of_a_century.html?cat=22" target="_blank">Pepsi VS. Coke: The Battle of a Century - Associated Content - associatedcontent.com</a>"The actual market share shows Coke still leads 42 percent to 31 percent for Pepsi. All the other guys generic, etc. equals the other 27 percent of the market. Coke Classic alone controls 17 percent of all soft drink sales followed by Pepsi with 11 percent. Then Diet Coke is third with 9.8 percent with Mountain Dew a Pepsi product 6.6 percent and Diet Pepsi 6 percent of the sales. Outside of Coke classic and Diet Coke the best Coca Cola drink is Sprite with 5.7 percent of all soft drink sales. This gives Coke the clear edge in public preference and Pepsi has had a very tough time generating any additional market share through advertising in many years. They did make some inroads with their taste test commercials, but it swiftly disappeared and they continue to trail in market consumer preference about the same as they did ten years ago.. . . Coke is much stronger than Pepsi seems to have a lot more acid or carbonation or whatever creates that strong taste. Pepsi tastes good to me it was sweeter than Coke and went down smoother with less burn."</blockquote>

Verification