Apr 23 2010
New Coke Fiasco Turns 25!
Interesting historical milestone today: Ad Age reports that the historic marketing fiasco, the introduction of New Coke and the brief killing of Original Coke, turned 25 today!
Can you believe that happened 25 years ago? Feels like yesterday.
The brilliant “mastermind” behind that fiasco was Coca Cola’s marketing chief, Sergio Zyman (the infamous “AyaCola”). Zyman went on to write a couple of best selling marketing books (a little like Bernie Madoff writing a book about business ethics), and then he started a marketing consultancy, the Zyman Group.
Sergio was much better at marketing himself than he was for any client’s product. He sold his consultancy a few years later to the MDC Group for what was reported to be a sweet $75 million. Only in America!
The lesson from the New Coke marketing disaster? There are actually many lessons. But, the biggest for me was the fact that brands are much more than tangible things that can be measured and evaluated through scientific means.
Indeed, as has been well reported, New Coke was tested extensively in nationwide taste tests. Reportedly, people preferred the sweeter taste of New Coke to the original recipe. So Sergio and his brilliant team of marketers just relied on that research and decided to dump the old Coke recipe, which had been a true classic for a hundred years before that.
Oops!
Of course, we all know that brands (especially beloved ones like Coca Cola) are much more than formulas, craftsmanship, design, taste and technology. Brands are not things. Brands are living, breathing ideas. They spring from emotions and people’s perceptions. Brands represent relationships and promises. You can’t just use scientific research to figure out what works in a brand. Just ask Sergio Zyman.
The emotional dimension of a brand is what makes a brand different from just a generic product or service. The Coca Cola marketers forgot that basic marketing tenet when they decided to replace the iconic Original Coke brand with New Coke.
Lesson learned!
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