Black is the new Red
A new drink has entered the already saturated Coca Cola product family. I've seen it in the US but hadn't gotten around to sampling it, so now I tried it out in the UK. I'm talking, of course, about the Coca-Cola Zero (left).
The Coca Coka Zero has a rather interesting history, it would seem. Takes us back all the way to 1985 and the New Coke fiasco and even before that, to 1982 and the launch of Diet Coke, the most popular sugar-free soda in the world.
The difference in flavors between Coke and Diet Coke are not accounted for simply by the replacement of sugar with aspartame and other sweeteners. These two beverages use a completely different formula of chemicals and whatnot for their flavor - Diet Coke's formula was originally conceived independently of Coca Cola's formula, specifically for that drink.
When Coca Cola wanted a new formula for their flagship product in 1985, they turned to the popular Diet Coke and reformulated that with sugar and a different blend of chemicals ingredients. After New Coke bombed, Diet Coke and Coca Cola continued their seperate ways.
Coca Cola Zero was introduced to the world earlier this year, and at first seemed a surprising move - what's the different between Coke Zero and Diet Coke? Both are aspartame and Ace-K based sugarfree Coke beverages, so what's the deal?
The deal, as my exposition clearly leads up to, is that Coke Zero is a sugarfree Coke that uses the standard, classic Coca Cola formula. Its flavor is much, much closer to that of normal Coke, and it has the added advantage of being sugarfree, which makes it better than the US's horrible high-fructose corn syrup sugar-substitute.
Marketing of Coke Zero in the UK so far has been mostly targeted at young men, a relatively weak demographic in the sugarfree Coke segment. Diet Coke is traditionally seen as a weight-conscious woman's drink. Ordering one is as much a blow to one's masculinity as eating a salad. This is why the new brand (Zero is much more manly that Diet), why the new color scheme (Black, baby! Black!) and the using of babes to promote it.
In short, my professional opinion: It's good. We like it. Bring it over the Israel.