The rival cola had been bragging that consumers preferred its product for years through its "Pepsi Challenge" ad campaign, which pitted Coke against Pepsi in blind taste tests. New Coke was born of a taste test of Coke's own. Nearly , consumers who tried the new formula liked it better than the old, Coke said. It's been described as a smoother, sweeter version of the original. Still, the new product was met with immediate outrage.
Another reportedly compared the change to the death of a friend. By May , fears were spreading among executives that the outrage could lead to a boycott of other Coke products, according to Oliver. In a blog post detailing the history of New Coke, the company outlined the backlash it received: "By June , The Coca-Cola Company was getting 1, calls a day on its consumer hotline, compared with a day before the taste change," according to the post. According to a New York Times story from July , executives began to seriously consider bringing the old version back in June, just a few months after unveiling the new product.
The company tracked consumer reaction to the new product in the weeks after launching it. They found that at first, most people actually preferred the new product. But eventually, more people said that they liked the old version more. That trend continued into the summer. Coca-Cola listened to its bereft fans. It brought the old formula back, and eventually scrapped New Coke altogether. The backlash to the new recipe and rallying around the old ended up "reaffirming to people that this classic, traditional brand has meaning to them beyond a search for a particular kind of taste," said Amanda Ciafone, author of "Counter-Cola: A Multinational History of the Global Corporation," which looks at social movements and culture surrounding the company.
Coca-Cola points to the incident as an example of how much Coke matters to people. Now, some people have a nostalgic attachment to New Coke. In , the company brought back a limited number of New Coke cans in a cross-promotional campaign with Netflix for the third season of "Stranger Things," which featured the item. To recreate the product, Coca-Cola had to reach into its archives to get the design and dig through its vault to recover the recipe. But, he warned, the company has to make sure not to take things too far.
The right kind of buzz Coca-Cola has been rolling out its new version of Coke Zero Sugar, which is designed to taste more like regular Coke, internationally for months. This summer, the new version hit the United States. Across the world, frustrated customers have expressed dismay over the new formulation.
On Twitter, users described the taste as "bleh," and "not good. Some people have been responding to the new flavor positively, and have said so online. Another said the product "hits that Coca-Cola craving," just as Coca-Cola had hoped. The original New Coke formula has been recreated and canned in a limited quality, and is being included with purchases at cokestore. New Coke will have its own role in the third installment of Stranger Things , and just as an actor prepares to immerse themselves in a character, so too did the Coca-Cola team in recreating its iconic flop.
We got our hands on a few cans and compared New Coke to regular Coca-Cola. My personal analysis was that, frankly, I liked it. I'm not a soda drinker very often, but between the two, I'd choose New Coke. While our survey was an unofficial and very small sample, with half of the people preferring New Coke, I wondered if a mass appreciation for the once-maligned product could garner it a second chance.
I asked Kibe whether the company would consider a bigger relaunch of its most notorious product if there was a positive reception this time around, but it doesn't seem likely. Stranger Things 3 streams on Netflix beginning July 4,
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