New Coke

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New Coke was the unofficial name for the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in April 1985 by the Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola (also called Coke). New Coke originally had no separate name of its own but was simply known as "the new taste of Coca-Cola" until 1992, when it was renamed Coke Ⅱ.

Coca-Cola's market share had been losing ground to diet soft drinks and non-cola beverages for many years. Consumers who were purchasing regular colas seemed to prefer the sweeter taste of rival Pepsi-Cola, as Coca-Cola learned in conducting blind taste tests. However, the American public's reaction to the change was negative, even hostile, and the new cola was considered a major failure. The subsequent, rapid reintroduction of Coke's original formula, rebranded "Coca-Cola Classic" and put back into market within three months of New Coke's debut, resulted in a significant gain in sales. This led to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy to stimulate sales of original Coca-Cola; however, the company has maintained it was a genuine attempt to replace the original product.

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New Coke was the unofficial name for the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in April 1985 by the Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola (also called Coke). New Coke originally had no separate name of its own but was simply known as "the new taste of Coca-Cola" until 1992, when it was renamed Coke Ⅱ.

Coca-Cola's market share had been losing ground to diet soft drinks and non-cola beverages for many years. Consumers who were purchasing regular colas seemed to prefer the sweeter taste of rival Pepsi-Cola, as Coca-Cola learned in conducting blind taste tests. However, the American public's reaction to the change was negative, even hostile, and the new cola was considered a major failure. The subsequent, rapid reintroduction of Coke's original formula, rebranded "Coca-Cola Classic" and put back into market within three months of New Coke's debut, resulted in a significant gain in sales. This led to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy to stimulate sales of original Coca-Cola; however, the company has maintained it was a genuine attempt to replace the original product.

At the beginning of 1986, however, Coke's marketing team found a strategy by returning to one of their original motives for changing the formula: the youth market so beholden to Pepsi. Max Headroom, the purportedly computer-generated media personality played by Matt Frewer, was chosen to replace Cosby as the spokesman for Coke's new "Catch the Wave" campaign. With his slicked-back hair and sunglasses, he was already known to much of the U.S. youth audience through appearances on MTV, where he had first appeared in the Art of Noise's "Paranoimia" video and Cinemax. The campaign was launched with a television commercial produced by McCann Erickson New York, with Max saying in his trademark stutter, "C-c-c-catch the wave!" and referring to his fellow "Cokeologists". In a riposte to Pepsi's televisual teasings, one showed Headroom asking a Pepsi can he was "interviewing" how it felt about more drinkers preferring Coke to it and then cut to the condensation forming on, and running down, the can. "S-s-s-s-sweating?", he asked.

Subject ID: 26743

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Subject ID: 26743