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11th May 2007

Diet Coke Plus Comes Up Empty

posted in coca-cola, diet coke, diet coke plus |
Posted by John Craven, Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 9:44 am

Diet Coke Plus is now on the US market there’s definitely some media buzz building. But is it warranted?
Personally, I don’t think so.

Yes, it’s an extension to the #3 CSD brand in the US market and it comes on the heels of moderate success with Coke Zero, but I don’t think this is going to work.

Here’s why:

  • “Plus” is an awful name choice. It’s bland and boring. What does it really mean anyway? “Plus” extra caffeine or energy might have been a more interesting entry :)

  • It has 10-15% RDA of several vitamins. Hardly meaningful.

  • Furthermore, consumers aren’t reducing their CSD consumption due to lack of vitamin content…and vitamin content in a cola doesn’t all of a sudden make it feel healthy.

  • It’s bad looking…like a C2 style logo with a rainbow color scheme on top of what appears to be a normal Diet Coke label. Not attractive.

  • It’s confusing. This doesn’t taste like Diet Coke and it uses a sweetener blend that’s different than Diet Coke. So it’s not really Diet Coke Plus Vitamins & Minerals. It’s really Diet Coke Reformulated. Confusion might just make consumers go somewhere else…like to a non CSD.

Overall, I think this one will definitely go the way of C2. A quick hit for the early part of the summer and then out to pasture by the end of the year.

So, what do you think?

This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under coca-cola, diet coke, diet coke plus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 10 responses to “Diet Coke Plus Comes Up Empty”

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  1. 1 On May 12th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    One more time Coke shows that it takes a lot of efforts and money to fail with new product. I cannot believe that there was no one person at Coke to notice that Diet Coke Plus is not really what consumers are looking for. Are they all retarded at Coke or John Craven is a genius? Or both?…
    I am sure Coke will learn something about vitamins if they buy Vitaminwater. It will be another expensive lesson.

  2. 2 On May 14th, 2007, Finn McKenty said:

    I’d be really interested to see who they tested this with and how they qualified those people. Of course I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that, like a lot of CPG companies, they recruited “alpha consumers” that do focus groups all the time and will just pat you on the back for whatever you show them.

    Without having done any research myself, I don’t have a recommendation for what this product could or should have been, but I agree that it seems like, well, doomed. The concept of adding vitamins to a CSD has some merit, I think, but this particular execution is not strong. I think they should have pushed it further, maybe leaving behind some of the trademark Coke design elements like the bottle shape in favor of elements that are more in line with the energy or water categories.

    For whatever it’s worth (not much), I actually like the “Plus” logo quite a bit.

  3. 3 On May 14th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    I agree the whole vitamin idea is ridiculous. Extra caffeine or some sort of energy formula would have made a lot more sense. I disagree on the packaging I think it actually looks nice and makes it stand out from the many different flavors of diet coke these days.

    You are right that isn’t doesn’t taste like regular diet coke but to me it actually tastes better as the new sweetener blend has helped reduce the after taste and it is a little bit sweeter. Maybe this is more of a test to see how the public would react to a sweetener change to regular diet coke. They have already done it for all the flavored versions after all.

  4. 4 On May 16th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    Another stupid multi million dollar flop from Coca-Cola- The person who drinks Coke does not care about a few extra vitamins in their diet. Instead of looking at the new exciting beverages being launched by entrepreneurs, Coca-Cola constantly ignores radical new ideas and just wastes $ on moronic variations of Coke. Then they complain they missed out on great products.

  5. 5 On May 16th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    i dunno, some people i know who are soda fanatics and live on diets of burgers and fries and yes - diet soda - might be getting some of their only good nutrition this way. They should have added 100% of a few good vitamins and called DC100%, unfortunately I already have that trademarked :)

  6. 6 On May 16th, 2007, i know everything said:

    Personally, I think coke has a real winner here, they nailed down the idea that rainbow colors and a new look are what they need to launch a new product. Two thumbs up!

  7. 7 On May 16th, 2007, Stephen Donner said:

    Coke is lame; Enviga tastes horrible–have they not noticed? And yet, they keep rolling out these half-baked ideas as if they were pioneering…

    I don’t feel that Coke is really testing its concepts and products on the _real_ consumer.

    Still, I’m looking forward to the Caribou/Coke partnership, which launches this summer.

  8. 8 On May 21st, 2007, Anonymous said:

    I like the packaging, will agree the taste was slightly confusing (23 yr old consumer perspective here).

  9. 9 On June 6th, 2007, Anonymous said:

    Well maybe if they actually put in some vitamins. I mean come on 10% is not worth the effort.

  10. 10 On June 13th, 2007, A thought from the inside said:

    Hey, just so everyone has an idea of what these folks really do…. Pepsi and Coke both have lame and stupid ideas of what we the consumers want! I watch in disbelief everyday at work were we make millions of cans that go out the door with products that have no taste nor following. Coke can’t even get in on a trend when its still a trend, IE. Vault Red…. Come on I was there when we make Code Red Mtn Dew years ago….. Coke is always a dollar late and a dime short, but don’t think Pepsi gets off scott free either. Does anyone even remember or know about Mr. Green????? Green colored Dr Pepper wanna be garbage. I can’t count the pallets of out of date product we crushed!

    As a summary to my long winded rant I will only say why can’t the big companies see that Dt Coke is good the way it is and Mtn Dew is great the way it is. If you are going to make something and try to make money don’t waste all that effort into a flop, reduce your overhead, streamline your delivery, control your sales fortcast (NO ONE DOES THIS RIGHT!!!!), and produce what you need. Hey no thats a winning formula and I didn’t have to give it a catchy name or jingle to sell it!

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