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The New Coke Debacle | History Defeats Itself #109
416 Plays2 years ago
How can one of the world’s most iconic #brands suddenly decide to change its #recipe ? It’s a good question. But #Coke did it back in the #80s. What prompted this change? Was it the #colawars with #Pepsi? Was it arrogance? Was it #Schlitz? We look at every angle.
Please subscribe and share! Greg has crippling gambling debts he needs to pay off.
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Send us love letters at historydefeatsitself@gmail.com
#Podcast #Comedy #ComedyPodcast #History #HistoryPodcast #HistoricalFails #FunnyHistory #HistoryHumor
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Transcript
Introduction: Inappropriate Topics and Podcast Intro
00:00:00
Speaker
He, but he's like, uh, he's like, yeah, by the way, I listened to some of your podcasts and I was like, Oh, cool. Do you like it? He's like, yeah, it was funny. He's like, you guys, you guys talk about dicks a lot. And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I could supposedly Greg though. He's like, Oh God. Yeah, it's usually Greg. 17 it's great. You're supposed to talk about what you know.
00:00:33
Speaker
History defeats itself as a comedy podcast. Kevin, John, and Greg are not experts, historians, or even all that smart.
00:00:46
Speaker
Hello and welcome to History Defeats Itself. My name is Kevin Rosenquist. Thank you very much for joining us today. We are a comedy podcast that wonders why people never learn from our history. I am joined by my two co-hosts today, two men who annoy the shit out of me on a daily basis, John and Greg. How are you guys doing? Did you, wait, did you introduce us as your co-hosts and not your friends today because we're annoying the shit out of you?
00:01:15
Speaker
Do I normally say friends? You say something nicer than just colos. That sounds very cold. Oh, I didn't know I was ever, I didn't know I was ever warmer than that. I do prefer lovers. Sexual partners. No, that sounds gross. He's right. If we're lovers, it means you care. Maintenance for lovers.
Geographical Trivia and Social Media Antics
00:01:41
Speaker
Did anyone ever look up a city in New Hampshire? Oh fuck, we did. No, it was Concord. Was that it? Nope. Nope. We ended the episode. We're like, oh shit, we never did that. And then we thought of one. We came up with the capital. I think we had to Google it though. I think it was Shreveport.
00:02:06
Speaker
Atlanta! It really doesn't matter. It doesn't and I think it's really funny that we can't remember again. We really want to apologize to everybody in New Hampshire. It's more a product of us being stupid than you being forgettable. Rochester! Oh there we go. One of my favorite bands, Ockerville River is based in New Hampshire where the lead singer, the wool chef guy, he's from New Hampshire. They're boring. No they're not, fuck you.
00:02:36
Speaker
you don't know i don't know i don't know anything about music you don't know you just constantly listen to death metal and it is concord concord there's dairy nasha nasha at n a s n a s h u a nasha nasha nasha maybe i don't know how you say it i think it's nashwa
00:03:00
Speaker
Okay, hey. Are we done? I don't know if you guys were done. Follow us on social media. We are on Instagram. We're less on TikTok. We caused a stirring debate about seat belts on YouTube shorts. That was interesting. One comment was really actually attacked your
00:03:19
Speaker
hear your comment, Greg, which I thought was funny because clearly he didn't understand what the podcast was about, that it was a comedy podcast. It was something like your argument doesn't make any sense or something like that. I'm like, what? You should go back and read them. They're funny. I hope that person was either like eight years old or 90 years old because anywhere in between, you're fucking stupid if you thought I was serious. Well, obviously, none of those people probably listened to this podcast because they didn't really
00:03:49
Speaker
I mean, I said that you don't want to leave an ugly corpse for the EMTs. It's not like that was a serious comment. I think you should leave as fucked up of a corpse as possible. I did. I did think that one of them was was fairly funny. The guy who said my body, my choice. I thought that was I saw that one.
00:04:10
Speaker
I was just thinking if you're gonna choke it'd be kind of cool or if you're gonna die you need an EMT or just like swallow a snake and then they go to give you mouth to mouth and just a snake comes in your mouth. That'd be kind of cool. Well when the snake, when you suffocate from the snake, you're not, you don't have to live through it. Okay. You're just doing it for the EMT. I apologize. Yeah, John, get your head out of your ass. Excuse me. God, you're stupid. I know. You're so dumb. Not, not arguing that point.
00:04:39
Speaker
All right, remember these episodes are on YouTube too, so if you want to see our gorgeous faces, feel free to jump on there and watch the episodes. Like
Iconic Brands and the New Coke Debacle
00:04:46
Speaker
us, subscribe, follow, all that good stuff. Review us if you feel like it. We haven't gotten any reviews in a while, but I don't give a shit. Do you guys? My mom, my mom reviews me all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Courtney reviews me too. Courtney, she's got some very sharp criticisms. Elwood reviews me quite a bit. It's really like, he's really awkward. A lot of criticism.
00:05:08
Speaker
God, that shot of Deserona got me kind of. Oh, you're doing that again? Yeah, I had no choice. I grabbed, I had no time after I got home. So I just grabbed the first bottle and this thing is really easy to grab. You grab it. That is true. That is true. That is a nice feature of it. Okay. It's my turn to lead the crew tonight. So guys question. When you answer, when you think of iconic brands, what comes to mind?
00:05:35
Speaker
Maytag. Bud Light. Coca-Cola. Bud Light's an interesting one. Coca-Cola, okay. Fiat. Disarono. Disarono, okay. All right. Montreal, Canadian. Mohawk Air. Okay, all right. I am not riding that airline, although I will say, probably a lot of punk rock playing, and that would be kind of fun.
00:06:02
Speaker
Because if you're going to go down, you may as well go down. That was their tagline. If you're going to go down, you might as well go down with Mohawk. Short lived airline. Very, very not well known. That's their catchphrase.
00:06:18
Speaker
So, one of the most iconic brands I can think of, Greg actually mentioned, made one of the biggest blunders a company could make back in the 1980s. Tonight, we're going to talk about the new Coke debacle. Yeah. Oh, fuck yeah, dude.
00:06:34
Speaker
Some of this comes from a 2015 Time article by James C. Cobb called What We Can Learn From Coca-Cola's Biggest Blunder. So Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by farmer pharmacist John Pemberton.
00:06:50
Speaker
I said farmer at first, definitely not farmer. So I'm kind of curious, like every time we do one of these and you go back in history, people always, it's like Pemberton and scooshy boo and all these like, I've never, I've never met a Pemberton, right? Like what happened to these people? Did they not have sex and have children for the children went on or did they have all girls and I don't know.
00:07:14
Speaker
What happened? Well, here you go. It was bought, Coca-Cola was, the recipe was bought by Asa G. Candler. Candler. Candler, C. Oh, Candler. I also think that a lost art is the middle initial. I feel like maybe we should be, I should be Kevin J. Rosenquist from now on. How about Thomas C. Howell? Okay. Pee, Pee Wee Herman.
00:07:44
Speaker
We get we was his middle initial I like that one So it was weird that they got rid of that letter of the alphabet. Yeah. Yeah, it was between CPK
00:08:00
Speaker
I don't know. It's not working. You're, you're, you're, you're crashing. Can we get to the cocaine part? Um, there's not a lot about cocaine in here. Um, so anyway, it was bought by Asa G Candler. He was very ambitious. And by 19, I'm sorry, by 1895, Coca-Cola was in every state, including large cities and small rural ones at soda fountains.
00:08:24
Speaker
I'm sorry, what year was this? That was 1895. And it was founded in 1896? I'm so confused. 1893, John. Oh, okay. I'm like, man. What is this matter to you, John? Well, I mean, I was thinking, what's the matter with Kevin? So the original dude, Pemberton, John's boy,
00:08:45
Speaker
He was getting it into soda fountains and stuff, but he didn't have as much entrepreneurial spirit as Asa did. So Asa was the one who was really ambitious. And then bottlers began adding water to the syrup and bottling it by the 1920s. So that's when it really took off because then it was being bottled.
00:09:08
Speaker
between marketing techniques and connections, the bottlers worked to make Coca-Cola the only choice wherever they could. So it sounds kind of like a little bit mafia, you know? Just like, get out of here, Sprite. You going to have a Pepsi or you going to have a Coke? Because one of those is going to break your leg. The other one's going to give you diabetes. Well, they'll both give you diabetes. But would you rather have diabetes with two good legs or one leg? Again, would you rather have a product with cocaine in it?
Market Dynamics: Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi
00:09:39
Speaker
Look, the only one of these is gonna get you high, all right? Anyhow, so you don't get your legs broken. So it's a win, win, win, win, something or other. I can imagine it came in a little pouch. You got your little, you got your caramel, you got your sugar, and then you got your little bit of cocaine, and then you're mixing some water, and then boom. The nice thing was they always put a little extra cocaine in there so you could do a quick bump before you mix it all together. That's just considerate. That's just manners is all that is.
00:10:09
Speaker
So, but as the suburbs grew in the 50s, 60s and 70s, the small town stores were kind of pushed out by the larger supermarkets and the larger super. As one is known to do in a capitalist society.
00:10:22
Speaker
And the supermarkets were stocking a larger amount of options. So there was far more competition for cooler space. Did you guys ever go in on those really off-brand sodas? The ones that are $0.70? Yeah. My parents would do that sometimes when we were younger in the leaner times. Even RC Colo was like, oh, not good. Yeah.
00:10:49
Speaker
Most of it's not good. Store brand Cola. Oh yeah. Oh, the, the totally generic brands. Those were ones. Yeah. So those were rough. Like there was Dr. K, Dr. Check. I don't remember those. Yeah. Those are Dr. K was like, would you say you got more doctors than my mother? I don't know what that was. A Nike swoosh. I've keep it score, I guess.
00:11:19
Speaker
Supermarkets accounted for three-fourths of the nation's grocery sales in 1982, and the rise of convenience store conglomerates like 7-Eleven made the soft drink sweepstakes even more competitive. Wait, there's sweepstakes?
00:11:39
Speaker
That was just the terminology in the article. I copied and pasted that line. I didn't feel like rewriting it. Okay. Cause I feel like you're not really winning any prizes by picking a brand. Okay. Well, you could be, you could be winning the prize of great taste. So wait, do you, do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? I prefer Coke myself. I don't drink, I don't drink pop anymore. I don't know if you guys do, but, but when I do, when I did, I like Coke. Do you prefer fountain drink or out of the can or bottle?
00:12:05
Speaker
Definitely the fountain like a McDonald's coke every once in a while like sheen and I'll go through a drive-through of McDonald's and we get a coke and it's like holy shit That's good. What's your ice preference? minimal Like some I need some ice I don't know for shape not necessarily quantity, but I okay. Oh you're going to shape. Yeah, yeah Like the hole in it
00:12:29
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I liked the little crunchies. Oh, you liked the crunchies. You liked the crunchies too. Okay. Okay. So it's almost like a bit of a slushie for you. Yeah. Okay. Coca-Cola, a Coke Slurpee is, is, is delicious.
The New Coke Formula: A Secretive Project
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I don't really consume caffeine anymore, so it's really tough for me. It's been decades since I've had one. Greg only does cocaine. He does not do caffeine at all. That can only be the cocaine, that's all it can be. His heart can't take pulse. Dr. Pepper's orders.
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I prefer Pepsi over coke really yeah, I do cuz well cuz it's a taste of a new generation you old sons of bitches Jackson rubber. Yep lit his hair on fire. He did light his hair in fire. Yeah, and they came up with Pepsi clear
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's funny, we'll, we can talk about, I didn't really dive into that at all, but that was, it wasn't Pepsi clear, it was Crystal Pepsi. And it was, I think it lasted less than a year, because I read a little bit about it. It was just terrible, just no one cared. And everyone's like, this taste is kind of weird, so it just didn't work. Anyway. And you know what they did with all that extra? They turned it into Zeba. All the Pepsi left over, and they're like, we gotta do something with it. They're like, sell it to Smirnoff.
00:13:50
Speaker
They just added the alcohol. Yep. The nation's single most popular soft drink product, Original Coca-Cola, had claimed roughly 60% of the market share in 1948. That figure had dwindled to 21.8% by 1984 in head-to-head competition with Pepsi, whose consistently expanding share had grown to 18.8. So pretty close. Pretty close. 60% also known as three-fifths.
00:14:19
Speaker
Okay, are we gonna do this? Was this gonna be a thing? He's got a book on fractions and he has just been going crazy all week. He just keeps reading it over and over again. Pepsi, which was developed in 1898, which was a few years after Coca-Cola was invented. Now you're gonna tell us the order of numbers? Was developed by Caleb Bradham and it was originally called Brad's drink. Which sounds like
00:14:49
Speaker
Like water sports. It sounds like water, like pee. It's like, I'm going to pee in your mouth. Give you some Brad's drink. Oh, like he's the dispenser. Yeah. It sounds a little self-indulgent. And then John made it even more self-indulgent.
00:15:07
Speaker
Brad's drink, the golden age of golden drinks. Brad's drink. I'm getting really tired of all these blow jobs. The official soft drink of R. Kelly.
00:15:22
Speaker
Thanks so much everyone. Thanks for listening to the podcast. In a way we can do any better than that. Have a great night. We got canceled. Pepsi was forced to declare bankruptcy twice in 1923 and in 1931. Both times they tried to sell out to Coca-Cola and both times Coke was like, nah, we're not interested.
00:15:43
Speaker
Did Brad still own it? That would have changed things. What'd you say? Did Brad still own it in 1931? I don't know. That's a good question. And it wasn't Brad. It was Caleb Bradham. Oh, OK. But he apparently liked Brad. I don't know. Maybe that's how the name Brad came around. Who knows? There was no Brads before that. There was no Brads before Caleb Bradham. He's probably one of these assholes that came up with his own nickname. That's not how it works.
00:16:09
Speaker
be asshole. You don't get your own nickname. You mean like Cairo? Yeah, like Cairo. God, he's really trying to get this stick. I don't know. Sheena came up with that and I don't push it. I just put it on here because I don't change it every week. Just shut the fuck up. All right, so Pepsi, Pepsi. Everyone knows his real nickname is Bengz McGee. No, that's never been a thing. Rosie was the thing. Didn't like Rosie. You were Rosie?
00:16:38
Speaker
Who called you Rosie? In like grad school or grad school, grammar school. I didn't go to grad school. You know in grad school or old school that I made up in my head when I went to Princeton? I got my PhD.
00:16:54
Speaker
in pornography. It's an at-home course. And it's pretty hot dude, is what I look at. So Pepsi bounced back, and after that, they were in a fierce battle for market share with Coca-Cola, which became known as the Cola Wars. The Cola Wars. Thank you, John. In 1975, they introduced their marketing campaign
00:17:23
Speaker
Pepsi or Coke? Yeah, Pepsi. The choice of a new generation? No. Oh, Pepsi. Drinking. Oh, it's not Coke. Pepsi. You would have been great at that. Did you get that from chat GPT? Pepsi. We used to be called Brad's drink, but we're doing better now with the name. We're less weird now.
00:17:46
Speaker
So where did Pepsi come from? Do we know? No, I don't know that. But this was the Pepsi Challenge.
Public Backlash and Emotional Reactions
00:17:50
Speaker
Remember the Pepsi Challenge? Oh, yeah. I do. Which for those younger listeners out there was basically an ad campaign where they would put two cups in front of someone and they'd say, which one do you prefer? And of course, in the commercial, everyone would go, I like this one. And it was Pepsi. But it was a blind taste test. Sorry, it was a blind taste test. Exactly. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
And that would be, that was the marketing point. They post their eyes out. It's not blind people doing the test tasting, it's just people don't know what the brand is. See, I did not know that. Yeah, you're welcome. That's what I'm here to do, here to educate with my PhD. You want to be a pretty hot dude too, huh? But contrary to popular belief at the time, there was no science involved with the Pepsi Challenge. It was simply a marketing campaign, that's all.
00:18:37
Speaker
Really? Wait a minute. That changes everything. It does. Later studies found that there wasn't much difference to what people preferred. It was pretty much 50-50 as far as what people preferred.
00:18:50
Speaker
But Coca-Cola's concerns about losing market share to the sweeter Pepsi caused them to feel that they needed to react. There were also still rumors, Greg, that Coca-Cola's contained merchandise number five, which was a stealth code for decocaine, coconized coca leaves.
00:19:11
Speaker
which was in the original, there wasn't technically cocaine in Coca-Cola. It was decoconized coca leaves. Are you sure? That's what, that's what they said. I don't know. I'm not. Did they, did they decoconize the coca leaves in the boardroom? Bring another wheel, bro. We're working all weekend.
00:19:38
Speaker
Better get those prostitutes in here because we're going to eat some backup. I don't know if you know this or not, but this is really affecting my boner. More coke.
00:19:51
Speaker
Anyway, despite the rumors, merchandise number five had been removed from the recipe 20 years after its inception. It hadn't been in there for a long time. For those keeping score, 1913. In 1913, they removed it. I don't know what the fraction equivalent of that is. Well, fucking work on it.
00:20:14
Speaker
And with President Reagan's war on drugs making headlines, the company didn't like the association with that rumor. And so this brings us to Project Kansas. Oh God, this sounds bad. It's a great name, right? Don't you think that there's like, there's colo wars and then there's wars on drugs? These are bad wars. What are good wars? Vietnam.
00:20:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. Yep, that's right. I'm just kidding. Hey, if anyone's sensitive right now. We didn't get cancelled on the R. Kelly joke. Yeah, there we go. That's called a joke, everybody. Swing for the fences. I had that baby teed up and you're like, dear diary, got to use my Vietnam joke today.
00:21:05
Speaker
Coca-Cola's senior executives commissioned a secret project headed by marketing vice president Sergio Simon and Coca-Cola USA president Brian Dyson to create a new flavor for Coke. It's like a Bond movie. Boy, they fucked up. Good. They commissioned some blind taste tests, surveys and focus groups, and the majority of people preferred the new flavor to both Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
00:21:35
Speaker
When they found out it was a Coke product, they actually liked it even more. And when they asked if they would buy it, the response was extremely positive that they would buy it in these focus groups. They said words like, yes. And OK. Sure. And when can I go home? You're paying me $50, correct? Why am I not allowed to leave?
00:22:03
Speaker
Why are there 50 of us here and only one toilet? And those poor people are still stuck in the Kansas project. So Coca-Cola was worried about releasing it as a new product.
00:22:22
Speaker
because of fear of cannibalizing their own products and bottling companies who knew of these tests were hesitant to accept another Coke product to have to distribute because Diet Coke and Cherry Coke had just recently become a thing and they did them basically at the same time. So all these bottlers were like trying to figure out the logistics of everything and they're like, hey man, we can't do another Coke product right now. So the decision was made to just replace Coca-Cola with the new recipe based on the focus group studies.
00:22:51
Speaker
This is not a good idea. CEO Roberto Guizueta insisted that it's saying new with an exclamation point. I might just call him Roberto from here on out because I don't know if Guizueta is right. But he insisted that it's saying new with an exclamation point on the can, which is why everyone referred to it as new Coke. It wasn't technically called new Coke. That's just what it looked like on the packaging.
00:23:23
Speaker
Makes sense to me. Yeah. Excolation. Have you ever been to the Coke bottling plant in Atlanta, Georgia? I have not. It's pretty cool. It's actually really cool. How many bottles and cans and stuff they do in a day. I've seen the show How It's Made. Don't think there was a Coke episode, but still, I've seen that show. I want to see the Coke episode where they're showing anime cocaine.
00:23:49
Speaker
That was the final show of the final episode where they got canceled. Discovery was like, mm-mm. Can't do that. I mean, we're going to air this. We're totally going to air this. And on reruns, too. It's going to go into syndication for sure, but you are canceled.
00:24:08
Speaker
So our friend Roberto announced the new formula on April 23rd, 1985. The massive promotional push, including celebrity endorsements from people like Family Man and all around good guy, Bill Cosby, and free samples helped make it seem like the change had been a success. All around good guy.
00:24:28
Speaker
Really? I added that part. You get the new coke and you get all rapey. The thing I like to do is you get a new coke and you take this little vial and it's got a powder in it, see? And you're partying like that. That's what I like to call my comeback gun. And then you hand it to somebody.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's the drug that sobers you up. So, things changed quickly after the initial positive response. The people rebelled against the new formula. The company received as many as ... They took to the streets. They did. The company received as many as 8,000 calls per day from irate customers.
00:25:08
Speaker
A psychiatrist whom Koch had hired to listen in on calls told executives that some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member. People were so pissed. How would you like to get that job as a psychiatrist? Oh, I went to Harvard. I just want to say, what's what's wrong with us and just us? I mean, human beings like, why do we care? It's Koch.
00:25:36
Speaker
I don't know, man. The thing they're addicted to is the sugar. It's in all of them. That's why you wanted to think, John. You always have a hard time with nostalgia. That is true. And tradition. You don't like it. You don't like nostalgia or tradition. There's nothing I don't like it. Nope. You don't like it. It's just that you hate your childhood and everything about where you came from. That's exactly right. So his nostalgia is fucked up.
00:26:00
Speaker
Oh man, I feel like we're about to open a door here though. Holy shit, Kevin, that was really fucking smart. Yeah, we're definitely changing the course of this episode right now. Yeah. John, I want to talk to you. I just, I don't, like I'm nostalgic about things, you know, like music and stuff like that, but I just, I don't understand. And I will say this, just a little side note, I am coming around on the sports stuff, right? Like I don't like it, but it's like, all right, I get it. Like I get what people get into this stuff, but it's just, it's Coke. Like what? It's just a drink. It's just a soft drink. And it's, it wasn't that different, right? I bet it.
00:26:30
Speaker
I remember it tasting a little tea saccharin. Well, Pepsi was known to be the sweeter of the two and that's one of the things they were trying to compete with.
00:26:45
Speaker
that it was trying to make us bigger. And it was like an artificially sweet situation. Well, no, because I think so. Hey, hey, I'm just going by what I remember, OK? Well, we'll talk. We'll talk. I'm sure it was still sugar or whatever the fuck they did, but it was not, wasn't as good. No, I remember Coke, you know, that version and it wasn't, I did not like it as much, definitely.
00:27:15
Speaker
I don't remember. I remember it coming out, but I don't remember. I remember the Crystal Pepsi too. I remember Crystal Pepsi. That I did not like at all. That was a very funky flavor. I remember Saturday Night Live at that time, because there was a lot of clear stuff coming out. And that's exactly why they did it, because there was a bunch of clear stuff. That was like the big rage. Yeah, they came out with like clear Sprite and clear 7.0. Clear water. Which actually stuck. Yeah, it did. Clear water, is that what you said? Clear water, yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
No, but starting out live did a skit where they were doing clear gravy for Thanksgiving. I remember that. That's solid. I like that. That seems like a good memory. Thanks. Thanks for that. That was nostalgia for my childhood. There you go. So protest groups formed. One was called the Old Coca-Cola Drinkers of America. It's very to the point. I feel like they were like, what do we call ourselves? I don't know.
00:28:15
Speaker
Our deadline's coming up. Our deadline's coming up. I'm on the phone right now with the namey people. You gotta give them the name. The namey people. The group's founder, whose name was Gay Mullins, filed a class action lawsuit against the company, which the judge threw out, citing that he preferred the taste of Pepsi. Which to me is him saying, go fuck yourself with this frivolous lawsuit.
00:28:43
Speaker
That sounds an awful lot like John's Saturday Life sketch. I thought that was great. I love it. If that's true, I think that's awesome. I love that judge. And my judge is Justice Chief Robert Sarge. Clarence Thomas. Yeah. Judge Wapner. Judge Wapner. Some compared the change to burning the American flag or rewriting the Constitution.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. One letter read, God and Coca-Cola have been the only two things in my life. Now you have taken one of those things away from me. I don't think God had... But at least I still got my guns. So now I got more things.
00:29:24
Speaker
Was there like a video at that time of Kid Rock shooting up Coca Cola cans with a machine gun? There should have been. Oh god. New Coke, I think New Coke is a pronoun. I don't like it. They Coke. Ads for New Coke were booed heavily when they appeared on the scoreboard at the Houston Astrodome.
00:29:53
Speaker
Oh, I was going to say, I thought if you're sitting at home and the commercial comes on, one of the things Nielsen's does is I'm pretty sure that 99% of people that are booing in fucking stadiums are just doing it ironically.
00:30:12
Speaker
Or just, yeah, or just trying to crowd. I don't know. Did you not hear? There was a society started. The old coke drinkers of America or something like that. No offense, but they sound kind of like pussies.
00:30:24
Speaker
You know, you know, these people needed, they needed the internet. We never, we've never said that one before. Yeah. They were crying out for the internet. They didn't even know it. Right. Well, cause they just, they wanted to bitch to somebody and they wanted to bitch each other. And if they would have had Facebook, they could have, there'd be like a whole, there'd been like a 200 million people on Facebook group hating. Well, they also, if they could come up with a better name, I think that maybe they could, you know, there's, there's no spark to it. You know, they needed like, I don't know, like
00:30:51
Speaker
like Coke masons or something that like, you know, like something that applies to something like the Coca Cola drinkers of America. Like, what the fuck? Who's getting behind that? How about coke eggs? No, that would, that would have taken off a lot of people like, Oh, this is not what I thought it was, but
00:31:12
Speaker
Kochenstein. People in the South were most angry about it. Some called it a surrender to the Yankees. Remember, this is 1985. To be fair, we were still really mad about the Civil War. Because it was only 100 years old, it was kind of fresh. We never let that one go.
00:31:35
Speaker
That's actually why I'm growing out the beard. I know I'm going to get drafted any day to go back and fight the Civil War, so I want to have a good Civil War beard, you know? You would die on the first day, John. Definitely on the first day. Well, I wouldn't die on the first day. I'd get shot, get gang green, and then die like a month later. Is the gang green still a problem?
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, if we're going to civil war, I think it's going to be. So that'll bring it back. If we have a civil war, we have to like go back to the 1800s. We have to use muskets, right? And cannons. Yep. I like it. I think it's good. A columnist from the Aniston Star in Alabama noted Roberto's Cuban origins and insinuated that the flavor change was a communist plot.
Marketing Failures and Lessons Learned
00:32:23
Speaker
Even, speaking of communism, even Fidel Castro was pissed. He called it, he apparently loved Coca-Cola, and he called it a sign of American capitalist decadence. He's right. I'm gonna die. I mean, you know what? I'm just so happy that the communists and the southerners were getting along. I know, right? It's like the first thing they ever agreed on.
00:32:51
Speaker
God, it's kind of like that movie.
00:32:55
Speaker
Uh, the field of dreams where the, where the whole world unites against aliens. But instead it's everyone unites against fucking Coke, Coca-Cola's. Okay. Is there anything that you think could happen where you would be that mad? Like anything? Like, is there anything for either one of you, like, like outside of like your family being harmed or something like that? Is there something like a product or something in that realm? Like a sports team? Is there anything that can, like if, if all of a sudden the Canadian said they're going to change their name to the
00:33:25
Speaker
Canuck. Is that a racist thing for Canadians? I don't know. No, there already is a team called the Canuck. Oh, it would be really weird. Well, no, I mean, I think the only thing that would piss me off like that is if I went in to get a tattoo and I asked for something and then I looked and it's just a ball sack. That would piss me off. It's a very good analogy. Yes.
00:33:48
Speaker
Even if you ask for a ball sack? No, that's the whole point. I ask for a portrait of John Banks and I get a ball sack. I'm not happy. Why is this ball sack so wrinkly? No sir, just stretch out your skin. Oh, it's me.
00:34:07
Speaker
I don't know who you're making fun of in that one. Forgot I was 87 years old. My bad. Outside of the South, the reaction wasn't too bad overall, but when the company met with international bottlers in Monaco, the bottlers straight up said they weren't interested in selling the new recipe.
00:34:28
Speaker
That surprised them, which is odd to me. Well, when I read that, I was like, so you didn't even think to ask if people would still bottle it before you released it? That just seems like, maybe you might want to do that. Yeah, you remember you introduced this topic by calling it a blender, Kevin? Yeah, but that's...
00:34:48
Speaker
So why are you surprised when everything you're seeing after that is blunderish? That surprised me because, well, I think the blunder is in that they totally misconstrued the reaction from the people, the consumers. I was surprised that they didn't at least ask international bottlers, hey, we're thinking about doing this, but did you still sell it? In fairness, they probably didn't even know they had international bottlers. Nobody was checking their email. Someone's like, hey, did you know that we sell this all over the world?
00:35:19
Speaker
It tastes like shit. You guys know that, right? You know this takes rust off a nail, right? People are drinking this in other countries except this dumbass one? I didn't know if John had one there. Okay.
00:35:38
Speaker
Pepsi even took out a full page ad in the New York Times proclaiming victory in the Cola Wars, which I would have done the same thing. Mission accomplished. There you go. I don't think a lot of people get that. I love a good GW reference. On July 11th, 1985, just 79 days after New Coke's launch, the company announced they were bringing back the old recipe, dubbing it Coca-Cola classic.
00:36:09
Speaker
ABC News. I remember that. Yeah. ABC News interrupted General Hospital with Peter Jennings to share this big news of the day. In fairness, most adults at that time were at work. Not at home watching General Hospital. On the floor of the Senate, Senator David Pryor said it was a meaningful moment in US history and letters and calls came flooding in, thanking and praising the company.
00:36:35
Speaker
Peter Jennings is Canadian, so it's kind of funny how Canadians just kind of step in and take over U.S. shit. Every time we were always bailing you guys out. You mean reading news that happens? It's not easy to do it without saying A every other word. It's true. For Canadians or for everybody? For Canadians. Greg calls me every morning at 6 a.m. and reads me the news and he always says A. I do. He's like, good morning, A.
00:37:04
Speaker
That's nice though. I mean, I would love that. I'd love to get the day's headlines from Greg. Remember when I wanted to do a news podcast? Come on, we can do that still. Somebody out there pay us to do a news podcast. No one's paying for any of this. Ever. We're like new Coke. We're podcast.
00:37:26
Speaker
No we're not, we didn't change our, well we did change our recipe actually. Well but yeah, but nobody formed a committee or a fucking thing to stop us. Nobody knows. My mom does, so. I don't think my mom knows. No, I texted her. Okay, you texted my mom, thank you for that. I did. The new recipe would stay on the shelves, eventually they called it Coke Two. In 1990 and by the end of. Because it costs less for the lettering to go from classic to two.
00:38:00
Speaker
By the end of 1985, Coca-Cola classic was outselling both new Coke and Pepsi by two to one. So that ended up working. So, I mean, that was July that they changed it back. So pretty quick, it turned around back in favor of a Coca-Cola classic and Coke two was like, Oh, what a relief. Coke two would stick around until do you guys, when do you guys think Coke two went away? 1997. I was going to say 1999.
00:38:18
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. I don't know.
00:38:29
Speaker
Greg wins prices, right. 2002, uh, was when it was officially discontinued. Yeah. Can you imagine if you had one of those cans, how much it'd be worth? Probably something. Yeah. Um, our, our, our buddy, uh, family, our family man and all around good guy, Bill Cosby severed his partnership with Coca-Cola claiming that his commercials praising the superiority of the new formula had hurt his credibility.
Consumer Behavior and Brand Loyalty
00:38:55
Speaker
Oh, it was that. Which is kind of ironic knowing what we know about him. Well, they did. They did actually use that in the rape case against him. Do you know he was a spokesman for that new Coke shit? That man is guilty. What a monster. He fucking is a monster. He's total monster and he's out, right? Didn't he go out and get out? Yeah. So that is the story of new Coke. The, um,
00:39:26
Speaker
The interesting thing about this is what the execs of Coke realized after this is that all their market research gave them info about how people felt about tasting the product, but they completely underestimated the emotional attachment people had to the original Coca-Cola product, which to John's point earlier, is wild that people could have that strong of an opinion about a soft drink.
00:39:54
Speaker
So do you want to, so Courtney and I, we were talking last night, um, as we do, not, not, not the drink. So we were, we were talking to our dealer. Um, no, we were talking about marketing cause Courtney's like, she is really smart and um, she like statistics. So a lot of times when they say like, you know, you're 50% more likely to get cancer from blah, blah, blah. Right. Well, a lot of times it, the thing, it may be that you have a half a percent chance of getting cancer if you
00:40:22
Speaker
Don't smoke and then if you do smoke you get a one you have a 1% right so you're double Right, but it's actually it sounds way more dramatic. But anyway, so one of the things we're talking about is that One of the worst sciences about about about surveying people is in diet because basically when you look at the data ice cream should reduce your chances of getting diabetes based on the market research and data they've collected and
00:40:52
Speaker
And that's a true thing. And the reason for that is because, well, it could be a lot of things. It could be, number one, people who tend to eat a lot of ice cream are, like in other words, people are probably lying about it because they have shame around it or something like that, right? And so anyway, so it's like basically because they don't... They have shame around being an ice cream eater?
00:41:09
Speaker
Or obese, or having a sweet tooth, or whatever. Because yogurt is supposed to help reduce diabetes. And yogurt is supposed to be a very healthy food. Well, if you look at the data, ice cream and yogurt are almost equal in what they do for you in the health benefit.
00:41:31
Speaker
But, but people don't like advertise our ice cream as healthy. Right. But yogurt does. So it's just, it's just like a very, I don't know, just faster. So are we putting out there into the world that ice cream makes you healthier? According to the data, it reduces. Courtney does. Well, yeah. Sounds like Courtney just wanted to go to Ben and Jerry's. I'm pretty sure she does. She does it. Courtney does have a sweet tooth. I have a sweet tooth. I'm like, yeah, that works for me. Let's go get ice cream. Are you still smoking weed?
00:42:00
Speaker
Me? Yeah. I mean, I don't smoke weed. Do you take cannabis? Yes. Okay. Well, that's probably why you have a sweet tooth. Right, but I mean, but even when I don't do that, like I just fucking, man, give me ice cream or give me death. I think that was George Washington. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I'm a big ice cream fan myself. It's actually something I strive not to have in the house because I could just crush it.
00:42:29
Speaker
Absolutely crushing chunky monkey and I will I'll take that son of a bitch out Oh mix sweet love to it. But anyway, but so the point is is like Pete point being is like people are stupid You can bend science anyway you want I agree Yeah, I'd like to cigarette like the smoking thing that you said about the the point five versus one percent I mean, I think we all know that
00:42:54
Speaker
You know, John, you and I were smokers for many years. We know we vastly increased our chances for lung cancer. I mean, you just did. We did. Yeah, for sure. But that's the thing is, and then when they say it, and I'm definitely not advocating for my smoke. Don't do that. Don't vape. Don't smoke. Keep your nice, healthy lungs healthy and clean. But it is kind of interesting because it's like they're like, oh, you're 50% more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke.
00:43:17
Speaker
And I don't know what the number is. Maybe you have a 2% chance of getting lung cancer if you don't smoke, and you have a 4% chance of getting it. But when you say it, you're 50% more, you're 100% more, it sounds so like, oh my god. But then if you don't know what the...
00:43:32
Speaker
statistics for people who get lung cancer who never smoke then it's like it really is just like an empty number that it is emotional, but it doesn't actually have any meaning. I like chips. God, they're fantastic. Wait, a TV show or? What's your chip of choice? Paunch. Wait, what did you just say? You said paunch. What does that mean? Yeah, I don't like paunch. What is paunch?
00:43:53
Speaker
From the show, Chips? From the show, Chips. My brain was not even anywhere near that. I was like, what is that? Why is there not a chip called Punch? Oh my God, that's a cold fry. Punch and John. Right, because it was John and then... John Baker. John Baker, yeah. Oh my God. Okay, but outside of the show, what's your chip of choice?
00:44:18
Speaker
I like, I like wavy lays barbecue. Oh, that's pretty solid. Yeah. That is like, I like a good, I like a good salt and vinegar chip. That's good too. Usually like a, like a kettle, the kettle cook. So it's a little bit, a little bit crunchier. Kind of gets your like right there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Burn, burn your mouth, but like, if we can, if we can get dip in the, in there, uh, the, the, the, the, the ruffles with like, like a French onion dip. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get dip in there.
00:44:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I don't see any reason why not to What right now? Yeah, okay. I'll be 20 minutes. Could you could you do that? Could you send some to me? I'm gonna go this door. I'm gonna door dash Seven and fifty dollars It's Where am I? All right. There we go. Um All right, so some of the examples that coke could have learned from Schlitz beer
00:45:16
Speaker
The slitch beer situation began in the early 1970s when the company decided to alter its brewing process to cut costs and speed up production. The new process led to a decline in the taste and quality of the beer, ultimately causing a significant drop in sales and reputation. Now that's an interesting one because being in Colorado,
00:45:39
Speaker
Like there's a lot of craft brews that get bought up. And as soon as they get bought up, they figure out new ingredients, cheaper, faster, whatever. And it always goes downhill. It's a bummer.
00:45:48
Speaker
Well, I think the difference is that Schlitz probably didn't advertise the fact that they changed their recipe, where Coke used that as a marketing strategy. That's a good point. And it backfired that way. Well, the problem with Schlitz is it tastes like Schlitz. Well, it's not good to start with. It was never good. Yeah, it's never good. I wonder if Coca-Cola changed their recipe and they never told anybody if people would notice. Yeah, I would be curious. That's interesting. I would be curious too. I think people would have figured it out eventually.
00:46:19
Speaker
put their thinking caps on. That guy, Gay Mullins or whatever his name was who formed that group would have been like, something's amiss. I don't know what it is. We'll figure it out. But it's not enough to band a group together. I can't get a group together yet. I'm going to stop drinking slits and I'm only going to drink Coke because there's something off about this Coke.
00:46:38
Speaker
I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to figure it out. The Ford Mustang 2, 1974 to 1978, Ford's attempt to adapt the popular Mustang brand to a smaller, more fuel-efficient car during the oil crisis led to a mixed response from the public. That's also butt-ass ugly. It sold well initially, but the Mustang 2 is now considered one of the least desirable Mustang models due to its underpowered engines and lack of distinct styling.
00:47:05
Speaker
Well, it looks like the endorsement. It's like the Pinto one. It looks like a Pinto. Yeah. Right. Like that. Yeah. The Mustang two is not. Yeah, it is not a good car. So. And it's ugly as fuck. Yeah. It's an interesting. I thought this topic was interesting because.
00:47:23
Speaker
You have one of the biggest brands in the entire world. That's one of the reasons I ask you guys what you consider the biggest brands is because if you think about some of the biggest brands you can think of completely just changing. John, you mentioned Bud Light, which is obviously in the news a lot for other reasons right now, but if they just up and change their recipe, Budweiser just changed its recipe and people would get pissed. I'll bet they would. People would get pissed because there's a lot of fucking Bud drinkers out there.
00:47:52
Speaker
and they don't want to change. It's probably a good example, changing the recipe, I'm sure, has made other companies decide never to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean- Even if it saves money and all that shit, they're not- Well, people have tried different things, you know, like we talked about Crystal Pepsi, and that was a complete disaster, but they didn't change the recipe of Pepsi in the process.
00:48:15
Speaker
Yeah, and when you stay with the original like classics, I know they call it a classic, but I think that just you're not going to get a new, a new product that's going to replace it. It's like clear. I mean, honestly, I'm trying out new Greggs right now. And so far the results are pretty well, is it? It's going well. Yeah. I found some like younger, healthier. There's no such thing as a younger Greg. There's definitely no such thing as a healthy Greg either. I know a couple.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah, I know. I hope my other friend Greg still listens to this because you're not doing great. You need some chin-ups or something. You should go to a doctor. You may be dying. I am actually legitimately worried about your well-being. You've got that mole on your neck that we need to have checked out.
00:49:05
Speaker
All right, guys. Last call. No. Oh, shit. I better pour it. Hang on. Pour it away. Pour away. Water. Water, you fucking pan's going to take a run. I'm going to go for a run. Going to take a run like an elitist, elitist asshole. I told you, I'm going to run for my feelings. What are you running from, your feelings? Life. Running from life. Well, I'm going to drink for life. Cheers to the people who do dumbass things to make their mark in marketing and fuck things up. Cheers. Cheers to Greg.
00:49:38
Speaker
Thank you, John. Thank you, Greg. Thanks everybody out there for listening. Until next time, drink that Coke. Someone to do a better one than that? I don't have a sign off. No, that's good enough. Coca-Cola. Whatever.