What was the deal with Pepsi AM?

[scott_evil]

Tell me I’m not crazy, but IIRC at some point in the late 80s/early 90s Pepsi decided to market a morning beverage called Pepsi AM.

So, what exactly was the stuff? Was it sickeningly sweet? Fortified with vitamins and/or fruit juice?

Don’t get me started on Pepsi Clear. I tried that in 1993 or 94 simply for the novelty of having a clear rum & Coke (well, it was Pepsi, but whatever). The stuff was weird.

• s.e.

[JeffB]

According to this article about failed products:

“If the consumer doesn’t know he has a need, it’s hard to offer a solution,” McMath points out, sensibly. “Sometimes a company can manufacture a need – but it’s expensive that way.” No one, for example, was clamoring for Pepsi A.M., a less-carbonated, extra-caffeinated version of Pepsi, aimed at what they presumably considered to be the large and untapped breakfast cola market.

Personally, Diet Coke is my morning beverage choice.

[JeffB]

And according to this site (from a University of Colorado at Boulder marketing course handout on product flops):

Pepsi introduced Pepsi A.M. in the late 1980s. Around that time, America’s soft-drink manufacturers had discovered that consumers, especially those in their late teens and early 20s, were drinking caffeinated colas rather than coffee for breakfast. Pepsi AM “with all the sugar and twice the caffeine” of other colas appeared as a “protest” beverage against the anti-caffeine sentiment then in vogue. It was well received, and Pepsico developed its own version of
cola-as-coffee substitute.

[Acsenray]

Wasn’t Jolt Cola the cola with “all the sugar and twice the caffeine”?

[scott_evil]

*Originally posted by acsenray *
**Wasn’t Jolt Cola the cola with “all the sugar and twice the caffeine”? **

It still is.