Posted on 01/30/2009 3:01:28 PM PST by Daffynition
NEW YORK (AP) -- Neither "New" nor "Classic," Coke is simply itself again.
Two decades after adding the designation, the Coca-Cola Co. is removing the word "Classic" from its prominent location on the flagship cola sold in the U.S., a company spokesman said Friday.
"The reason for being, for classic as a descriptor, has all but disappeared," spokesman Scott Williamson said.
The "Classic" tagline -- right under the script Coca-Cola logo -- was added in 1985, when the company introduced a formula that consumers called "New Coke." New Coke never caught on and was sold sparingly until it was dropped in 2004.
Coke Classic is the leading soda brand in the world. About 1.7 billion cases of Coke Classic were sold in the U.S. in 2007, according to Beverage Digest. The trade journal reported the removal of the "classic" name earlier Friday.
Williamson said Coca-Cola decided to make the change as it launches a new global marketing campaign it's calling "Open Happiness." He said it was not an appeal to younger consumers, although the company has said before it wants to appeal to younger drinkers as soda sales decline in the U.S.
"Taking it off will modestly contemporize the brand because, to some people, classic doesn't sound youthful and contemporary," Beverage Digest Editor John Sicher said.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
It the real thing again.
New Coke was some nasty stuff.
Not as bad as Crystal Pepsi or Mountain Dew Black (Mountain Dew with grape flavoring and coloring added), but nasty.
They tinkered with the formula of Coke and people hated it, so they hastily added “Classic” to the orignial formula as damage control.
I guess they now believe the memory of New Coke has passed on for good.
New Coke? Bush’s fault!
> New Coke was some nasty stuff.
I can just barely remember what it tasted like. I didn’t like it, and switched to Pepsi.
I still prefer Pepsi to Coke, but Pepsi isn’t as ubiquitous in NZ as it would be in the US — so Coke will have to do most of the time.
Now, if only we could get rootbeer down here, my joy would be complete!
I had a soda made with cane sugar for dinner last night.
Man oh man, was it good.
Ok, so the real question is, is Coke legally entitled to do so now after switching its recipe from sugar to corn syrup and being forced to acknowledge the change, or was that a myth?
“Classic” Coke is not the same stuff from the 50’s.
Coke, in the UK, never said “Classic” on it because they never marketed it there. It seems that the folks in the UK actually liked the taste of New Coke, because it was very close to Pepsi. New Coke is still marketed in the UK....
what kind of soda is made with cane sugar?
Almost. Here's the real thing. Sweetened with cane sugar and available in pull-tab cans. Too bad you have to travel to Arabia to get some.
That's the only Coke I buy now.
Hansens's is fairly common. Lots of other "small-batch" sodas. Pretty much any soda outside of the United States where sugar tariffs keep the price of sugar artificially high making HFCS the preferred commercial sweetener.
LOL—I love that stuff, but if I’m going to spend upwards of $1 per 12 liquid ounces of something, it’d better have alcohol in it.
But where does the water come from?
A professor at my school let it slip one day that she was part of the team that decided to change the formula, I have had her for several classes over the past couple of semesters and we manage to harass her at least once a week over it.
I buy that a lot -- a little pricey but it's much nicer.
And we're talking about the cola here, just to be clear.
You are Madison Ave smart!
That fiasco happened in the 80's. Reagan's fault :-)
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