{"id":42836,"date":"2018-09-04T04:45:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-04T09:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michaelhyatt.com\/?p=42836"},"modified":"2018-09-04T04:45:43","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T09:45:43","slug":"new-coke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fullfocus.co\/new-coke\/","title":{"rendered":"New Coke: Anatomy of a Terrible Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Coca-Cola Company\u2019s own website<\/a> admits that it was probably \u201ca day that will live in marketing infamy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On April 23, 1985, Coke Chairman and CEO Roberto Goizueta announced to 200 reporters that the company would be changing its formula. It would be still be called Coca-Cola, but this \u201cNew Coke\u201d would taste better and people would love it.<\/p>\n

Goizueta explained why the decision to change Coke\u2019s 99-year-old formula was by no means a hasty one. The company had commissioned nearly 200,000 taste tests of the new recipe. The tasters mostly loved it. \u201cTo market research experts, to our bottlers, and to the retail trade, these numbers represent a staggering superiority,\u201d he beamed.<\/p>\n

Science itself, it seemed, had blessed New Coke. Full speed ahead and damn the fizzy bottles.<\/p>\n

Boston Coke party<\/h3>\n

And yet, American customers didn\u2019t love this New Coke as expected. In fact, quite the opposite thing happened.<\/p>\n

There was mass hoarding of the Old Coke that was going away, popular protest songs, petitions, tens of thousands of angry letters to Coca-Cola along with thousands of angry phone calls every single day. People staged their own quick-and-dirty versions of a modern Boston Tea Party, with soda pop patriots pouring out bottles of New Coke in the streets.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have to be ever vigilant in our democracy,\u201d one particularly worked up protestor told Newsweek<\/em>. \u201cWhen they took old Coke off the market, they violated my freedom of choice. It\u2019s as basic as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. We went to war with Japan over that freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sales of New Coke started to go soft and in pockets of the country completely cratered. Even managers within the company who had been enthusiastic about the newer, sweeter Coke started to urge the leadership to bring back the Coke that people knew and loved.<\/p>\n

After several internal meetings, Goizueta and company decided in July that they needed to bring old Coke back as Coca-Cola Classic. News of this got out fast. \u201cPeter Jennings of ABC News interrupted the daytime soap opera General Hospital to report that old Coke was returning,\u201d writes Thomas Oliver in the great book The Real Coke, The Real Story<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, in a press conference with a mood \u201centirely different from the press conference just three months before,\u201d writes Oliver, Coca-Cola execs kept things short and contrite. To those who supported New Coke, Goizueta offered thanks. For those who didn\u2019t, he promised, \u201cour message to this group is simple: We have heard you.\u201d<\/p>\n

5 lessons from the New Coke fiasco<\/h3>\n

With that concession, and with Coca-Cola Classic back on shelves, Coke came roaring back, more popular than ever. At first New Coke was sold alongside Classic. Over time, given a choice, consumers clearly preferred Coke the way that it had been. New Coke\u2019s name was changed to Coke 2 and is no longer sold in the United States.<\/p>\n

The Coca-Cola Company argues that the New Coke fiasco \u201cstands today as testimony to the power of taking intelligent risks, even when they don\u2019t quite work as intended.\u201d Which is a funny way of putting it when you turn the replacement of your core product into a mass, persistent protest movement.<\/p>\n

Here are 5 takeaways that might help leaders today as you try to balance introducing new products with promoting old favorites:<\/p>\n

1. Don\u2019t let the competition distract you<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s good to know your competition, but it\u2019s not good to let them live rent free in your head.<\/p>\n

One reason the Coca-Cola Company thought they had to mess with Coke's formula was the Pepsi Challenge. It was a highly publicized, blind taste test that Pepsi created to show people preferred their product over Coke.<\/p>\n

This bothered Coke executives to distraction and they tried to come up with a way to do better in taste tests. And thus New Coke was born. Critics said that it tasted more like Pepsi, and they were right.<\/p>\n\t\t