It’s partly designed to appeal to Diet Coke drinkers as well, to be fair.
Some in the company were originally worried Diet Coke would cannibalize Tab and the opposite happened. Tab sales did decline (which was happening anyway) but there wasn’t a 1-1 conversion so it was some combination of new customers and some who were drinking both for some reason.
I always thought it was as much to folks who like regular Coke but can’t/don’t want to drink as much sugar anymore. Diet Coke and Coke Zero taste quite different, and Coke Zero tastes closest to full-sugar Coke.
All of the above, I would think (Tab and Diet Coke didn’t exactly taste the same either).
The “why” and “how” of it are important of course, but as long as overall sales go up I don’t think they’re complaining.
Not beige - Cosmic Latte.
Yes, as long as overall sales go up. But Coca-Cola had no inherent incentive to have multiple flavors. As far as they’re concerned, the ideal situation would be if they could manufacture just one product and everyone would buy it.
New products are only judged a success by the company if they are sold to customers who weren’t buying the company’s other products.
Also they had to get rid of Tab’s “girly” hot-pink can color and whimsical font if they wanted to attract calorie-conscious male soda drinkers.
Or are inspiring existing customers to buy more of the company’s product. If you drink your usual ration of regular Coke but also have a bottle of some weird new Coke flavor out of curiosity, that’s a win for the manufacturer.
I think with a lot of these “limited edition” flavors, the marketing strategy goes the other way around. The cost of development, production, distribution, and promotion is probably high enough that the company will count it as a win if they break even on the sales. The real goal of these special flavors is to convince people to try a Coke and hope that they then decide to become customers for your regular flavors even after the special flavor is gone.
I guess, but in this day and age are there really any potential customers who don’t already know what Coke tastes like??
Coca-Cola has definitely nailed it on the brand awareness front. But they still need to move people who are aware of Coke to people who buy Coke.
I just cracked open my Dreamworld Coke Zero. I’ve never had cotton candy Faygo, so I am going to say this tastes like Smarties (the American pressed-sugar tablets, not the British chocolate things).
Not bad! I love me some regular Coke Zero so I don’t think I’d get more than just this bottle. I do love trying new weird treats, tho!
I’ve tried the Dreamworld Coke Zero. It’s good (definitely better than Starlight) but I’m not switching over from regular Coke for it.
BUMP
I’ve been drinking Coca Cola Move, the latest temporary flavor. I only ever drink the “Zero” variety of Coke and Pepsi now and have been lucky to find one little case of mini-cans for each new flavor. Did I miss one the past 6-7 months?
Anyway, this one tastes identical to Dreamworld, though it may be because of the large gaps between trying these. I see nothing new with this Move flavor.
I like it, but it’s not groundbreaking.
I like Move a lot. It’s sort of like cotton candy but with a weird popcorn aftertaste. Not gross, just interesting. If they didn’t charge a ridiculous amount of money for it compared to the other flavors, it might be a regular purchase for me.
I enjoyed Move. I couldn’t stand any of the previous flavors.
Oreo Coke Zero
What the heck? I kid you not, it tasted like Starlight Coke. I think they basically just used that recipe and threw Oreo on the front. Nothing like Oreos, nothing even different.
I don’t hate it, but I had a very different idea in mind about what it was going to be. Anyone else try Oreo Coke?
It appears I have missed several flavors. Here’s the list from Coke’s website:
Byte
Dreamworld
Happy Tears
K-Wave
Marshmello
Move
Oreo
Starlight
Ultimate
Y3000
Apparently some of them could only be bought directly from Coca-Cola; they weren’t sold through stores.
We found some at one of our local grocers and bought a six-pack. I can definitely taste the black cocoa powder which is used in Oreos, not sure about the cream filling.
My SO doesn’t care for the stuff but it’s not bad to me; 'course, I’m used to Canfield’s Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge. The cans are small, ⅝ the size of regular cans, so we won’t be buying any others unless there’s a sale.
The spouse and I tried it, and both of us liked it. I’m surprised how much they managed to make Diet Coke taste like Oreos.
I’ve had the Oreo Coke now (the zero sugar version). I like it. It’s basically a chocolate flavored soda.
Has anybody tried the cookies yet?