[tanknetter]

What always gets overlooked with New Coke is that New Coke beat “old” Coke in taste tests, which is the main reason that Coke rolled it out. Coke just didn’t expect the backlash that would come from changing what was considered a classic.

Yup, intrinsic vs. extrinsic value.

Because New Coke as a Coca-Cola replacement (as opposed to a new drink that would complement Coca-Cola) was kept secret, the Coca-Cola marketing folks could only ask about reactions to the taste ... not about the entire concept of changing an American Institution (TM). If they had been able to ask the more important question (what do you think about Coke changing its formula) they would have noticed the likely fallout immediately.

[Publius Valerius]

As I recall, there was some testing like that, but the question wasn’t quite so direct. Something like, “assume this is Coke. Would you buy it?”

Clearly a textbook marketing blunder in retrospect, but I think that the folks at Coke get skewered a little too much for a decision that made rational sense at the time. Coke invested a lot of money in testing the product and got good results. Weird thing happened when they went to market.