Cola wars
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Cola Wars is the term used to describe the campaign of mutually-targeted television advertisements and marketing campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s between soft drink manufacturers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo.
Competition
Pepsi and Coca-Cola had/have different brands of soda competing with each other:
| Type | Pepsi version | Coke version |
|---|---|---|
| Dark Cola | Pepsi | Coca-Cola |
| Diet / Low calorie | Diet Pepsi / Pepsi Light Pepsi ONE Pepsi Max |
Diet Coke Tab Coca-Cola Zero Coca-Cola Light |
| Low Carb | Pepsi Edge (discontinued) | Coca-Cola C2 (discontinued in USA) |
| Lemon Lime Soda | Sierra Mist 7 Up (manufactured by Cadbury in the USA and by PepsiCo elsewhere) |
Sprite |
| Cherry Soda | Wild Cherry Pepsi | Cherry Coke |
| Orange Soda | Tropicana Twister Slice Mirinda |
Fanta |
| Orange juice | Tropicana | Minute Maid |
| Iced Tea | Lipton Brisk | Nestea (manufactured by Nestle in the USA and by Beverage Partners Worldwide (BPW), a joint venture between Nestle and Coca-Cola elsewhere) |
| Water | Aquafina | Dasani |
| Root Beer | [[]] | Barq's |
| Sports Drink | Gatorade | Powerade |
| Citrus Soda | Mountain Dew Mountain Dew MDX |
Mello Yello Vault Fresca Surge (discontinued) |
| Vanilla-Flavored | Pepsi Vanilla | Vanilla Coke |
| Lime-Flavored | Pepsi Lime | Coca-Cola with Lime Diet Coke with Lime |
| Lemon-Flavored | Pepsi Twist | Coca-Cola with Lemon (discontinued) |
Marketing campaigns
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Coca-Cola and Pepsi focused particularly on rock stars; notable soft drink promoters included Michael Jackson (for Pepsi) and Paula Abdul, Elton John (for Diet Coke).
Coca-Cola
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One example of a heated exchange that occurred during the Cola Wars was Coca-Cola making a strategic retreat on July 11 1985, by announcing its plans to bring back the original 'Classic' Coke after recently introducing New Coke.
Pepsi
Pepsi ads often focused on regular people, particularly the young (and young-at-heart) and those in the future, choosing Pepsi over Coke, supporting Pepsi's positioning as "The Choice of a New Generation." Pepsi began showing people doing blind taste tests called Pepsi Challenge in which they preferred one product over the other, and then they began hiring more and more popular spokespersons to promote their products.
In the late-1990s, Pepsi launched its most successful long-term strategy of the Cola Wars, Pepsi Stuff. Consumers were invited to "Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff" and collect Pepsi Points on billions of packages and cups. They could redeem the points for free, Pepsi lifestyle merchandise. After researching and testing the program for over two years to ensure that it resonated with consumers, Pepsi launched Pepsi Stuff, which was an instant success. Tens of millions of consumers participated. Pepsi outperformed Coke during the summer of the Atlanta Olympics - held in Coke's hometown - where Coke was a lead sponsor of the Games. Due to its success, the program was expanded to include Mountain Dew, and into Pepsi's international markets worldwide. The company continued to run the program for many years, continually innovating with new features each year.[1]
The Pepsi Stuff promotion became the subject of a lawsuit. In one of the many commercials, Pepsi showed a young man in the cockpit of a Harrier Jump Jet. Below ran the caption "Harrier Jet: 7 million Pepsi Points." There was a mechanism for buying additional Pepsi Points to complete a Pepsi Stuff order. John Leonard, of Seattle, Washington, sent in a Pepsi Stuff request with the minimum amount of points and a check for over $700,000US to make up for the extra points he needed. Pepsi did not accept the request and Leonard filed suit. The judgment was that a reasonable person viewing the commercial would realize that Pepsi was not, in fact, offering a Harrier Jet. In response to the suit, Pepsi added the words "Just Kidding" under the portion of the commercial featuring the jet as well as changing the "price" to 700 million Pepsi points (see Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc.).
In 1986, Coca-Cola and Pepsi were launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle in order to conduct a taste test. The companies had to design special cans for use in zero G conditions. The experiment was classified a failure by the shuttle crew, primarily due to the lack of refrigeration and gravity. Coke would later return to space with an improved delivery system, operation conducted and supervised by Mircea Mutiu.[citation needed]
Second Cola War
During the 1990s, a "second cola war" was reported in the United Kingdom.[citation needed] This time it was due to the launch of Virgin Cola, as well as Sainsbury's store brand Classic Cola, which, unlike most store brand colas, was designed to look like a top product worthy of competition. For a few years both colas were competitive with Coca-Cola and Pepsi; at one point Coca-Cola even sued Sainsbury's claiming the design of the Classic Cola can was too similar to Coke's. However, today, both Virgin and Classic Cola are far behind the two major brands.