Marketing Essey

New Coke failure

New Coke was the unofficial popular name for the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in
the spring of 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship
soft drink, Coca-Cola. New Coke originally had no separate name of its own, but was simply
known as "the new taste of Coca-Cola" until 1992 when it was renamed Coca-Cola II.New
Coke was introduced on April 23, 1985. Production of the original formulation ended later
that same week.
New Coke is "for my money",the most epic new product fail in marketing, more so than the
DeLorean, Apples Lisa and Newton, Sonys Betamax, and even the Edsel.Even the slogan
didn't helped so much; "The best just got better ! Coke is it !",i'll answer a bit later.
Coca Cola as a brand is one of the most recognized brands in the world. Before organizing
any advertisement, promotional strategy, public relation event, or any other form of media
event, Coca Cola undergoes various processes of understanding their consumers and tailor
their event accordingly.An extensive market research is conducted which includes surveys,
focus groups, in-depth interviews, online forums and blogs, and any other form of obtaining
information which helps in knowing the consumer. Creating marketing campaigns tailored to
the life of its consumers has made Coca Cola a successful brand and increased brand loyalty.
But in 1985, Coca Cola was responsible for one of the most disastrous blunders in marketing,
also known as the Coke Fiasco, by introducing a new product called New Coke.
The launch of the New Coke was not a hasty decision. Coca Cola performed market research
for a period of two years and spent an enormous amount of $4 million to compare the taste of
New Coke versus Pepsi and old Coke. After performing 200,000 blind taste tests, it was
concluded that people preferred the taste of New Coke over any other available beverage.
Therefore, New Coke was given a new packaging and launched in the market with a bang and
they discontinued the old Coke.
It made perfect sense for the Coca-Cola Company to improve their product, making up for a
known deficiency versus a focal competitor. In fact, sales analysis trends immediately
following the product launch showed significant gains for the Coca-Cola Company.
The public revolt ensued shortly thereafter, and it had little to do with the taste of the soda.
In launching the new version of Coke, the Coca-Cola Company had a made a fundamental
error in forgetting the source of the value it was truly offering consumers.
"The best just got better ! Coke is it !",if we analyse the slogan we can find the mistake made
by Coca-Cola, "The best" represents the leader which had made lots of efforts to be on top of
the roof, if you try to make it better it means that it is not the best !It's simple.

In my opinion Coca Cola did not interpret its customers, their needs, and expectations from
the company. It is very important to perform a brand research along with market research as it
provides an insight of what people perceive the brand as. It is important to focus on the
product as it should be according to the consumers liking, but at the same time, there should
be equal focus to brand management. And depending on the information, marketing campaign
is launched which will motivate the customers and decide the fate of the product.
In conclusion Coca Cola is one of the most recognized brands on the globe and the main
factor behind their success is their Marketing Strategy. But even the best company can make
mistakes which can cause the shutdown of the company. Even though Coca Cola was really
lucky as their sales increased after the whole fiasco, but it is very rare in the field of
Marketing.
Popescu Ionut Octavian
Facultatea de Marketing
Grupa 1721