New Coke.
The Coca-Cola Company · Roberto Goizueta · Consumer Goods
A reformulated Coca-Cola that beat the original in blind taste tests and lost to it everywhere else.
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Figures undisclosed
3 mo (79 days)
1985–1985
PR Disaster
Died in public, quickly
Reversed in 79 days.
TLDR
In April 1985 Coca-Cola replaced its flagship formula with a sweeter version that had outperformed both old Coke and Pepsi in nearly 200,000 blind taste tests.
The tests measured sips. They did not measure what customers felt about a brand they had grown up with being withdrawn. The company fielded tens of thousands of angry calls and letters, protest groups formed, and on July 11 — 79 days later — Coca-Cola Classic returned to shelves.
The episode is taught as the definitive lesson that product preference and brand attachment are different measurements, and that only one of them was being taken.
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