The Coke Wars as Analogy for Presidential Candidate Branding
If you don’t remember New Coke, it’s probably because you weren’t kicking it in 1985 (also you should check out Wham’s ‘Careless Whisper’). The short synopsis is “Coca-Cola’s original drinks market share had been shrinking fast, from 60% just after World War II to under 24% in 1983, in the face of fierce competition from arch rival Pepsi-Cola…as more consumers showed a preference for sweeter drinks, [Pepsi]” and as a result Coke tried to reinvent itself as a sweeter drink. Instead of introducing a sweeter version under a name like Coke Zero, they stopped selling the original Coke formula altogether, and instead sold a new formula under the same name.
This “New Coke” was a huge failure and was abandoned after 77 days. The failure was a surprise to the company because overwhelmingly people preferred the new coke to old Coke and Pepsi in taste tests. It seems people rejected the new iteration of a classic brand, and were sometimes actually hostile to the idea of a new version of an old brand. In the south, people actually poured the new coke in streets in protest.
In the presidential primary, Barrack Obama is a new comer dominating a market held by a party and family over the last decade. He is Pepsi. The Clintons are coke, an outdated brand trying to reestablish dominance by serving the needs of voters. In response to Obama, Hilary has attempted to co-opt everything people like about his campaign, i.e. change, and like New Coke’s launch, the result has been a massive failure demonstrated by a string of primary defeats.
First, some small examples of HRC co-opting the Obama campaign’s message: Sen. Obama says, “Yes We Can,” she counters “We are a Can Do country;” He remarks, “It’s time for a change,” she pivots, “I have the experience to bring about change;” and then she hands out change signs at her rallies.
Taking the next logical step, Edwards is Clear Pepsi….just kidding.
It should be noted, however, that after reintroducing the original formula and abandoning New Coke, Coke was able to usurp Pepsi and become the number one soda again. Coca- Cola was able to remind people of their significance and reasons why they used to buy the drink, and perhaps Clinton’s brand vacillation will ultimately help her in the remaining primaries by reminding voters of the 90s.
On Saturday afternoon Silbatron and I were reminiscing about the last great outdoor party in DC, an accidental find due to an address mix up in 06 that ended with us being subsequently discovered as crashers when the host insisted on posing for a photo with each departer. The irony was the host insisted we were acquainted after our crash confession, and it turned out he was right – we had spent a distant fourth of july together and his wife was a classmate, so officially still crashers but at least familiar crashers.
