New Coke
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- Опубліковано 8 тра 2024
- The story of the Fake Thing.
Create your own hated formula with Bespoke Post. Visit bespokepost.com/emplemon and use code "EMPLEMON" at checkout for 20% off your first box.
Contents:
0:00 Coke Is It!
2:58 No Sacred Cows
10:15 The Best Just Got Better
15:00 Catch the Wave
20:51 We Read, and We Listened
24:32 The Real Thing
Patreon: / emperorlemon
Twitter: / emperorlemon
References and Further Reading: pastebin.com/mubHGfuE
Music List: pastebin.com/8YH5e21x
The fact that people spoke about new coke as if a family member had died just goes to prove what kind of grasp some companies have on us. Literally it was like they stopped manufacturing water.
Disney is the new Coke in this regard.
It's a bit disturbing. I enjoy products from certain companies, McDonald's, Apple, etc. But if say McDonald's changed the secret sauce on Big Mac's... I'm not gonna go bother protesting it. That would be ridiculous.
@@Web720 and nintendo is the new disney
@@rainbowresorts its both.
Worse. Nobody expects gam gam to live forever.
Her Slurm will taste foul. Which is why we'll market it as New Slurm. Then, when everyone hates it, we'll bring back Slurm Classic, and make billions!
I can still hear this line
Lmao Futurama was always ahead of it's time. Literally and figuratively
Today I finally understood that line.
@@PoohhNani that's not ahead of its time, that joke was parodying the new coke fiasco
@sisuphos They also did it in the Bongo comics, in an issue where Sideshow Bob has apparently had plastic surgery, and Bart and Lisa are trying to figure out which of three newcomers to Springfield is actually him, one of them is a homeless man who turns out to be the creator of New Coke.
The fact that guy lived by new coke and drank it until he died shows he actually stood by it, or he was petty af which is also comdendable
I can't tell whether you meant "condemnable" or "commendable" and that honestly adds to this comment
@@1ntenc0 lmao reading it back it's so much funnier, say it out loud "comdendable"
@@1ntenc0
*YES.*
@@1ntenc0 that bothers me so much
@@1ntenc0 I'd be impressed in either one of the cases.
In case he really stood by it, shows he has (or rather had, during his life) a vision.
In the other case, if he was petty, then that's a simple statement about sheer willpower.
Both are commendable in my opinion
Imagine if Coke never actually changed the recipe, they just named it “New” Coke as a social experiment to see what would happen
The trouble is that the Old Coke had cane sugar as the sweetener and now it uses Corn Syrup. The taste is very bad and very inferior to coke made with cane sugar.
@@spacecadet35 as a Brazilian which only has cane sugar Coca Cola, I'd love to taste the corn syrup one just to bash on any American saying how much ours is superior
@@coldguto Corn Syrup Coke isn’t bad. But yeah, Cane Sugar is undoubtedly better. Wish it was more accessible in the US
E
@@spacecadet35 coke had already started phasing in HFCS into their drinks before the new coke fiasco. By the time new coke debuted, old coke was already completely sweetened by corn syrup. People didn’t notice it then, and they probably don’t notice it much now.
The fact that Bill Cosby left Coca Cola because the company _"hurt his credibility"_ is priceless.
Now the question is...the question is...was he raping before his credibility was hurt by New Coke, or after? Cause if after, I think we have a smokin' gun! /s
(we don't)
Coca cola wakes girls up
@@Ottophil cocaine does that
In the 80s yes. It's not like this happened within the past decade lol
@@KP-hm1dn i just think it really shows how Cosby was upholding a kind and soft demeanor for a long time.
The crazy thing is that the marketing is so ingrained in our culture that it has literally become color association. Early in the video when you removed the coke logo and made it grey my mind instantly went to Diet Coke because that’s how they do their branding.
Ikr, it’s so interesting
Yea, I can't even see blue without thinking of Ikea.
@will make memes shut up
Oh god branding
Holy shit, PATTERN recognition!?
The idea of Bill Cosby being worried about new Coke ruining his credibility had me in tears laughing.
Bill Cosby is victim of sour apples.
@@Markos581973I hope you are joking.
@@Markos581973you waited an entire year to say that?
@@howisthis8849 he probably had just found this video and wanted to respond to the comment
One needs to consider that some things about Bill Cosby might be made up. Then we have to consider projects/operations like Mockingbird.
"our children will never know refreshment"
I could not possibly imagine loving a soda so much that you make a sign and protest about it
I don't know if they changed Sprite I might have to make a sign😂. That's the truly refreshing one 😂😂
Europoor detected.
Plenty of countries with higher gdps than the US
In Europe that is
People are stupid. Especially in the south
"The release of new coke was the only time he ever agreed with Castro" as someone who has grandparents who escaped Cuba, that is the most savage roast I have ever heard from a Cuban relative.
Wow cuba
Imagine telling your son “I agree with the murderous dictator who forced us to flee the country.”
Based Dad
Love your channel bro
Dude love your content
Solar Sands and EmpLemon are the same person. Gotta be. Right????
As a former Coke executive once put it when asked about the theory that they failed New Coke on purpose so that Coca Cola Classic could succeed “We’re not that dumb and we’re not that smart.”
I could totally see that being uttered by a Simpsons Character. Maybe Mayor Quimby. Maybe the bald guy with the Moustache. Probably the bald guy with the moustache.
That's just what a smart person would say. It was 100% a publicity stunt.
I heard it's because they released Coke Classic with high fructose corn syrup instead of real sugar so people wouldn't notice the switch from the original
Edit: He just mentioned it in the video lol I didn't get that far
They already had a winning formula and some stupid conspiracy attempt for marketing could just as easily backfire on them.
@@poika22 no, they’re genuinely not that smart. in retrospect it seems like a solid idea, but the logistics of creating, marketing and distributing an entirely new product costs billions all for the potential bump in sales it could bring to the existing formula. it would be way too risky for anyone to sign off on even if they had that idea, but i doubt they’d even considered it until new coke had already launched and failed.
When I was a kid we always went to this one ethnic gas station because they imported coke bottles from Mexico- the reason why we did this was because these particular bottles of coke still used cane sugar instead of corn syrup. I can’t tell you how much better this version of coke is. It’s just as sweet without the terrible aftertaste- it’s like a capitalist ambrosia.
mexicoke is still sold at some shops in the states and it is much better i agree
Mexican Pepsi is also great, but unlike Coke you can get Real Sugar in a standard 12 pack for the blue.
I buy cases of cane sugar Coke from my local Costco. One thing I've noticed with that stuff is that it doesn't leave a film on my teeth like corn syrup soda does.
"It's not different, they just use a different ingredient." Lmao what?
@@triggered977
I'm literally holding a glass bottle of mexican coke in my hand right now, and the ingredient label says cane sugar. You are incorrect.
"Ingredients: carbonated water, cane sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine."
And I can taste the difference, it's night and day.
The reason New Coke failed is similar to why Oldsmobile took a hit in the '80s. Their advertising campaign was meant to appeal to the younger generation with the tagline "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" which only served to push away the target demographic who were actually interested in the cars their parents owned, as well as alienating the already loyal consumers who thought the advertising campaign meant that something about the cars had been changed. New Coke tried to advertise how different it was from classic Coca-Cola, but Pepsi wasn't successful just because it was different from Coke. The only soda that profited off of Coke being Coke was Coke.
Reminds me of when Scion tried appealing to young people but got mostly old people to buy them since they are just easier to enter than old sedans with higher ground clearance.
...also, boxy cars are the last thing I would think young people would have wanted, I have no idea what was Toyota thinking...
Coke-ception
After watching this I asked my parents if they remembered New Coke. Apparently one of my uncles and my father attended a baseball game and to promote New Coke a vendor was throwing free cans to people. One smacked my uncle in the head and knocked him out cold. Coca-Cola gave him around $10,000 or so because of it. To this day he says it's the only reason he likes New Coke.
"knocked him out cold" hehe
@@JoNarDLoLz Well to be fair... I guess he really did get a cold one
THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER
murrdy
murrdy
0 seconds ago
THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ANOTHER
OdiousMax's Stinky Trash Bin
OdiousMax's Stinky Trash Bin
2 days ago (edited)
After watching this I asked my parents if they remembered New Coke. Apparently one of my uncles and my father attended a baseball game and to promote New Coke a vendor was throwing free cans to people. One smacked my uncle in the head and knocked him out cold. Coca-Cola gave him around $10,000 or so because of it. To this day he says it's the only reason he likes New Coke.
ua-cam.com/video/6bMLrA_0O5I/v-deo.html
This guy could make the history of the phone book interesting
Dang, I completely forgot those existed
I wanna see a phone book video now
I want this. This would be a sick video.
Did you know at one time there where books with everybodies name, phones and sometimes addresses and nobody care about the big doxxing book
He might actually do it just to meme
The introduction to High-Fructose Corn Syrup is what new Coke was all about. In the end, they got what they wanted as the corn syrup stayed.
I feel like it was setup so people would be so happy to have regular coke back they wouldn’t notice the corn syrup or care as much if they did.
Fda wins again
There are a lot of theories about Coke around this time, but I think the best word on the subject is from one of the executives, who said "We're not as dumb as New Coke made us look and we're not as smart as Coke Classic made us look."
@@bradr3541 If so, it worked, but it's a pretty risky strategy honestly. I just can't imagine an entire boardroom of experienced businessmen would go, "Yes, let's risk our entire reputation on this plan." Maybe, but I doubt it personally.
@@DiamondDust132 I honestly can’t think of any other realistic reason.
I was alive when this happened. I never heard a single person say New Coke tastes better, ever. To be that big a company with a successful formula and try to literally throw the recipe away makes zero sense.
Ok I came up with 2 possibilities.
Maybe the ingredients had gotten more expensive and they were trying to cut costs
Or maybe they pay some kind of huge payments to someone to use the original formula and we’re trying to end that by using a new formula.
I don’t think either of those two are likely. By that point the recipe would be fully owned by coke.
In my PR classes in college we weren’t allowed to do projects on New Coke because it was such a widespread disaster they figured there’s nothing more of value that can be said😂 glad someone made a video tho it is a cool topic for people who haven’t heard of it
when was this? depending on the time frame this could be from amusing to hilarious. like, im just imagining the semester directly following this starting and the professor standing up, very first words to the class, being 'yes, we all heard about new coke, we all know what an absolute fuckup of a disaster it was, if you so much as ask if you can do this or that project on new coke you're booted from this course and you are fundamentally flawed human being. hello, i'm dr james, i'll be your marketing 301 professor for this semester'
My grandpa worked for coke for decades. As a salesman he was able to keep some bottles of the old coke, new coke and classic coke. He keeps them up on a wall. Pretty cool
Did he have 16 oz glass BOTTLES? ... sold in packs of 8 ... equaling 1 gallon total.
drink them
Neat.
Can yah reply to B sm’s comment?
That's awesome if true I've collected coca-cola stuff for years. Glasses radios lighters ECT.
Oh, to live in a time where advertising a failed soda was considered "hurting his credibility."
haha yeah i laughed at that part
he definitely did something that hurt his credibility ALOT more
Its just funny to think that a messed up marketing campaign not only generated huge revenue for coke at the end but also saved them from a PR nightmare that would have happened if bill cosby didnt stop doing buisness with them....maybe subway shouldve changed the taste of their sandwiches to achieve the same effect
@@wetoddedd what a legend
"Failed" only in the sense that it was cancelled by people throwing literal tantrums. The more things change...
I was about 12 years old when this happened, and my dad drove trucks for the local coke bottler at the time. We were fierce coke partisans in the soda wars, and felt utterly betrayed by new coke. My dad stashed away several cases of old coke and we rode out the summer of discontent with a healthy supply of the real thing. The cokes we drank that summer tasted 10x better than any soda I've consumed before or since.
The vaporwave soundtrack on these corporate documentaries is the icing on the cake. Love your channel man.
Most of it is instrumental versions of classic songs and video game music from persona 5 and smash bros
Reminds me of when they stopped making twinkies in 2012 for a while. I remember one woman on the news crying not just at the thought of her never eating a twinkie again, but of her kids never getting the experience either. That was when I realized how strong the bonds of branding can truly be, and none of us are safe from it.
Or she was just mentally ill and you're a redditor (not human)
twinkies arnt even that good though. God, people are just so dumb.
Twinkies tastes like chemicals and sweetener I don’t understand the emotional attachment
I saw a news story about a whole neighborhood of people that had gathered around the property where a Taco Bell had burned to the ground. These neighborhood people were crying uncontrollably, singing songs of tribute to the burned Taco Bell, getting on their knees and praying for the restaurant to be rebuilt very quickly because "we just CAN'T do without Taco Bell for that long. We'll have to move." The songs of tribute they were singing to the burned Taco Bell were written by those in attendance so it was all so bad it was making my ears bleed. But these people were being so serious and emotional and acting like someone had just murdered some people or something. It just made me sick to my very soul. I was like, "As a society, THIS is where we are now?" We might as well just go ahead and nuke ourselves at this point and start with the burned Taco Bell neighborhood. Then my neighborhood so I don't have to wait long. 🙄
@@gabbo7101 Twinkies are an abomination of nature.
From what I've heard, New Coke was better tasting when you just had a few sips, but was much less enjoyable if you had multiple cans or a big bottle. Coke's biggest consumers were (and are) the people who practically drink it instead of water. Imagine if they somehow changed the taste of all the water you drank, and you couldn't stomach it anymore, you'd probably start protesting.
That raises another good point; did the little taste testing ad campaign Pepsi did DIRECTLY just... fuck Cola over? With a single ad, they fucked up Coca-Cola's entire marketing LOL
Fun fact: The energy and processing etc used to make one liter of Coca-Cola costs 3 liters of water.
typical americans.
Utterly disturbing.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I can only tell the taste of Pepsi because I am/was one of those water drinkers. Just the slight off sweetness is enough for me to tell. I couldn't do that as a kid.
This is just the perfect example of the phrase:
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I love the fact that this ultimately made people love coke more and sales actually increased. What an incredible thing.
Fun fact about Coke: In the Soviet Union, Coca-Cola was considered a symbol of American imperialism. When Dwight D. Eisenhower befriended Soviet general Georgy Zhukov during World War 2, he introduced Zhukov to Coca-Cola and he loved it. In order to avoid being branded as a traitor, Zhukov requested a colorless Coke so he could disguise it as vodka. It was pretty much Crystal Pepsi but fifty years early.
Coca-Cola was later distributed in the Soviet Union for senior Communist Party officials only as "Red Star Cola".
Zhukov was a fucking gangster. Watch Death of Stalin (or a review of it) for an idea of the magnitude of the man's balls.
@@leatheryfoot6354 The Death of Stalin is an amazing film and I recommend it to everyone. It's very dark, but very funny.
another fun fact: that colorless coke was later rebranded (with a touch of extra acidity and lemon flavor) as clear coke
Crystal Pepsi, which I kind of liked back then as well.
New coke was literally a successful mistake. The fact that so many people wanted the old coke was a giant advertising drop.
@keep rolling deez nuts are here
Kind of reminds me about the Sonic's movie old design
@@Knuckles_la_Enchilada its basically the same story in a way lol
I know Emp said in the video that New Coke was the outlier against the phrase ‘any publicity is good publicity,’ but in the end he was wrong. It was a hugely successful mistake that made people appreciate what they had (shitty sugar water with a different label on it ❤️)
I bet new coke was a disguise to make people forget what old coke taste like so they can remove the cocaine from it then bring it back but everyone would have forget the cocaine taste. Massive conspiracy theory i just made.
16:53 the issue with the mass dumpings is that you still bought the product.
It'll never cease to fascinate me how people will absolutely lose their minds over things that really don't matter at all.
New Coke did have a different taste to it. Emp simply failed to cover the difference in taste or the change in formula in his 30 minute video on the subject.
To quote the 2000s: "Epic Fail".
@NarlepoaxIII. It may not matter to you and it may not matter to me or thousands of others but it certainly matters to some and it mattered a whole lot. It's fascinating for sure.
I've had New Coke, if anyone wants to know what it EXACTLY tastes like, get a can of Pepsi and a can of Coke and mix it 80% Pepsi, 20% Coke and you have New Coke.
Hi Larry nice seeing you here, also I totally agree with you, honestly soda is soda lol xD
I wonder if the same people who can't tell the difference between coke and pepsi, are the same folks that value odd things, like -cockroaches from the ocean- lobster.
I'd say close but not exactly... add a tiny bit sugar or corn syrup, maybe. I was there during that era and I tired Coke 2 plenty of times but I NEVER finished a can of it because it was too sweet (but not overly sweet). It was one of those thing where it tasted good at first but the taste would wear on me..... kinda like the Burger King Whopper.
It seemed like Safeway always had 16oz tall boy cans of Coke 2 on sale until 1987.
Lol not a bad recipe. But you forgot the last step - leave it out, uncovered, for 8 hours before drinking.
Why would I ruin a Pepsi with Coke?
You know, as a kid, I once saw a bottle of Coke II at a video rental store and didn't know what the deal was. I had always been fascinated by the idea of a SEQUEL to a soda. Because it's just so dumb.
babe wake up coke 2 just dropped
babe wake up coke 2 just dropped
Dumb indeed my brother, wise you are 🙏🏻
Coke Goes To Hell: The Final Friday
@@Itlivesinthewall Coke: The Dream Child
In the summer of 85, I was 12 turning 13... and I was at a summer school program at Purdue University. We were staying in one of the dorms and there were a couple of Coke machines on the main floor. We quickly depleted the old formula cans, which got replaced with New Coke, which was nowhere near as good. It was flatter and too sweet.
A few of us explored the entire dorm, including the basement... and the little known, little used Coke machine down there... that was still full of the Real Thing! We held onto the secret the entire two weeks of the program!
I'd argue Coke is more recognizable than the stars.
This is because I live with severe light pollution and have never seen the stars.
"I've got a feeling that for most people, Coke isn't supposed to taste good. All it has to do is taste how they remember."
I recently came to a similar epiphany when it came to my favorite fast food, In-N-Out Burger. When people who didn't grew up on the west coast try it, they're often underwhelmed. Their burgers taste good, sure, but for people who swear by In-N-Out, I think it has more to do with the fact that a Double Double purchased today tastes identical to the Double Doubles they ate as children, whether that be 10 years ago or 50 years ago.
In n out is the best burger franchise ever.
I feel the same way about my neighborhood pizza place. No matter how many new pizza places open and become more modern .i still put the local one in my top 10
Yeah that’s how McDonalds built there brand. You’ll get the same Big Mac in London as you will in bumfuq, Idaho
All they have to do is think it tastes identical. Coke switched to HFCS after preventing everyone from tasting the real original coke, then claimed that was the original coke.
As a SoCal native, how dare you speak ill of the glorious In-N-Out
From what my dad says, Coke Zero basically tastes like New Coke but diet. He was around when new coke happened and was a big fan. He often would mess with his friends who didn't like new coke by tricking them into drinking it thinking it was the classic formula lol
Did they ever realize it through taste?
I like Coke Zero more than Coke.
If im going to drink a traditional soda its almost always a coke zero or a sprite. Its just not as pure sugar flavour as a lot of the other brands
@@Pheatan There's just something about a regular coke when you're extra hungry or extra thirsty though. Maybe with a slice of pizza. Favorite thing after an organized run. :-)
@@greenoftreeblackofblue6625 you like cancer more than diabetes frfr
I used this video as one of the sources for my Business Ethics final project, which I got an A on. Thanks, Emp for the quality content.
Nice job 👍
Look closely at the logo design on the cans today. The silver stripe next to the white one was kept from the new Coke design, indicating the two were essentially mixed, where cane sugar was represented by the white stripe, and corn sweetener by the silver.
My father worked for coke as a driver during the whole fiasco.
He thought that the 'New coke' was a marketing ploy to make Coke back on the minds on every American, no matter the reaction.
Basically, they just wanted a major change no matter what that change was, because it got everyone thinking about them.
Then, they very, very quickly had already sent Coke Classic cans to distributers to roll out, which was weird because making those cans and changing production facilities' formulas should have taken a lot longer.
Guess that's why some coke-spiracies came out.
Bush did New Coke
normal people are smarter than executives me thinks
To quote an ex coke executive “we’re not that dumb, and we’re not that smart.” Maybe they just rushed the rebranding because they needed to meet financial goals. I can’t imagine a difference logo and formula would take that long for factories to adjust.
@@faithlifeworshipcenter460 I mean that sounds super compelling, but they took of the classic and are back to Coca Cola, and it has a different recipe.
Also, not being able to keep the same name while changing the recipe sounds kinda unbelievable. Like, coke had changed it recipe a few times and I know for a fact other companies change recipes but keep the same name. If I am wrong here than egg on my face but it all just sounds like a stretch.
no publicity is bad publicity
“I don’t smoke. I don’t chase other women. My only vice has been Coke. Now you have taken that pleasure from me.”
God bless you angry 80s southerner!
Based as usual
80s? We're still like that
This guy gets it.
Someone who didn't smoke in the 80s? Wtf
Sigma Grindest, Zero Smoking, Zero Wamen, 100 Coke
Capitalists deriding new coke as a communist plot and communists deriding new coke as capitalist decadence is perhaps the greatest example of radical centrism I've ever seen.
"But the one thing they love more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done for them, eventually they will hate you"
- Green Goblin
People in the 80's: "This is awful, now our kids and their kids will never know the taste of the REAL Coke"
Their kids and grandkids: "This is awful, now we'll never know the taste of improved Coke"
literally
cry about it
Tell me about it
@@zzz_zzz_ZZZ_zzz_ZZZ_ZZZ_Z_z-ZZ I don't care, I prefer Pepsi. It's just funny to observe.
I'll cry about Crystal Pepsi though, but at least it was cancelled by Pepsi Co., not by the masses.
Now I’m more curious what is taste like
When you mentioned the CEO was a Cuban refugee, I was like "Wonder why he bothered to mention that"
The irony the Fidel Castro set off the dominos that killed his favourite drink was such a hilarious connection to make.
because its fundamental information about a person
thats how you introduce people
Gusano
I find it funny New Coke was accused of being the result of Communism and Capitalism from two different parties.
@@yoshimasterleader New Coke: The radical centrist's drink
Unique - be honest - do you watch empLemon bc after all the piracy you're worried about scurvy?
Man, you make me nostalgic over times and events I've never even experienced. That's unbelievable.
"Expectation that southerners would welcome any change with open arms" LMFAOOOOOOOOOOO
The failure of New Coke had nothing to do with the formula. They could have rolled out the new formula with a small announcement and no new branding and we would still be drinking it today. Changing the font on the cans at all was probably the largest marketing misstep ever.
absolutely what I was thinking....
New Coke was an intentional failure designed to disguise the fact they changed the formula. As evidenced by the fact that "Coca Cola Classic" was not the pre-New Coke formula.
Nope, it tasted like crap. I’ve had a vintage can
@@wolfetteplays8894 Could you imagine after so many years it would taste a tad bit different?
@@wolfetteplays8894 Oh hey everyone it's someone that can taste the difference between coke and pepsi wowie
Coke using Max Headroom as their spokesperson back then is the equivalent of them hiring a big Vtuber today and that's wild to think about
@@DigeeTheGenie The three arrows of soft drinks
Against Coke, Pepsi, and uh idk Dr. Pepper?
>Max Headroom was a proto-Vtuber
Topkek
Ironmouse promoting Sprite on ABC would be quite the head turner.
@@seronymus i can now out-meme people saying the annoying orange and the gorillaz were the first vtubers. I feel powerful.
Reminder that Dominos had a collaboration with Hatsune Miku.
00:49 That looks so creepy, Coca-Culta
Lol
I’m going to make this point because I haven’t seen anyone make it yet. The original Coca Cola recipe used real cane sugar as a sweetener. Around the 70’s 80’s some products started implementing high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener to try and save on production costs because it was a cheaper alternative to sugar. When Coca Cola made the switch to New Coke in 84, one of the changes was they used high fructose corn syrup for the first time instead of sugar, which could have been part of the reason it wasn’t as popular as the original recipe. When New Coke made the switch back to Coca Cola classic, they didn’t switch back to sugar and continued to use high fructose corn syrup instead. So my conspiracy theory is that Coca Cola wanted to reduce production costs by switching from sugar to high fructose corn syrup, but it would have been noticeable if they just changed that ingredient over night without telling anyone, so new Coke was made, and always destined to fail, in order for Coca Cola to make that switch without everyone all of a sudden noticing. This is only in the US by the way. You can still get Coca Cola made with real sugar in Mexico, and most other countries in the world, and everyone I have asked says it’s better than the Coca Cola we have here in America.
I think the fact that the CEO wasn't fired, but instead, his tenure was considered a success, lends credence to your idea.
Johnny Harris did a video on the myth of the Mexican coke 😁 tbh I think the difference in flavor comes from the glass bottle cause it's such a slight difference but it is noticeable. That's the real conspiracy, why did we switch from glass to plastic
@@charleserickson3499 amen to that!
@@charleserickson3499 meh, coke from Europe may not be made with cane sugar, but it is made with actual sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup, and it definitely tastes different. It comes in plastic bottles.
@Jayce phthalates will get ya worse than the sugar 😉
It’s like Oreo. Oreo can literally sell the exact same cookies in the exact same package for the rest of time and make a billion dollars. Oreo makes alternate flavors all the time, but they never replaced the original.
Coke thought re inventing the wheel was a good idea, should’ve just spent more on ads.
New coke worked and possibly allowed them to shift to the much cheaper high fructose corn syrup without people noticing.
It's like that College Humor skit for the Oreo CEO. :D
Oreo could probably get away with making Double-Stuf the normal Oreo. It's a straight upgrade.
Branding is always the reason why you pay more than your average product
@purple X shut up
Yeah I feel popular sports teams are a great example of overcharging mundane products. Likke a single chelsea mug can be sold for like 12 pounds while you could just get a 4 generic functional mug set for like 8 quid on the same site. That's the power of expert branding folks!
I believe in pure evaluation of the goods but I know that takes too much energy so people prefer going to reliable brands. Yet branding doesn’t make something good right? Confusing.
Branding does more than that. It acts as a promise of consistency, security in the quality of the product. You get a coke, you know what you are buying. Go to McDonalds and you'll know the quality will be on par with pretty much every other McDonalds. This promise and the ease of making it known is why they can charge a premium, average quality or not.
The Branding where you put a brand lable on something that isn't actually that product is just a way to create a cult. It's replacing religious iconography with product placements, and worse those who fall into it only exacerbate it. Die hard Fandoms are the ultimate form of these cults. They don't just like the product or comany, they worship it.
✌👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
I had a college professor who was the VP of marketing at Coke during the time New Coke came out. He said it was both the best and worst publicity that could happen at a time like that.
Thank you EmpLemon, this video carried me into a 97 on an essay assignment. Was great reference for points to be made
To think that people really used to think this channel was dying out a few years ago. Right around when the downward spiral started I had almost completely lost interest in YTPs and a lot of other content I'd been watching at the time like let's plays and such. I took a year off of UA-cam for the most part and when I came back I saw how different the channel was and that it turned into what it is now. This is the only channel that I "grew up" with. It stayed in my interest for years longer than any other. When my old account of seven years was terminated, the first channel I decided to subscribe to was this one because it's almost synonymous with my UA-cam experience as a whole. My old channel has been here since the 10k mark. It's a neat phenomenon to grow up alongside a UA-cam channel, and this is the only one I've ever heard of doing it.
It's like this guy changed with us, I used to love YTPs and still watch them, but I just love video essays even more
I started watching around 2016, right around the time he started making more "rant" type videos which I really liked.
@@tomiyu2297 YTP are cringe
@@User-ge7ni Nah not at all, growing up with them was amazing zoomer
I loved EmpLemon YTP and im happy for him to adapt and evolve and continually grow his channel while others would fade away.
It's funny how so many companies nowadays refuse to listen to a story like this. They change the formula, then blame the customer for not liking it, instead of just releasing it along side the old thing
if it was up to me we'd still have both!
because it takes from the OG product’s sales
@@OhSoKatelyn1 Which doesnt matter if you think about it
if you have 20% market share with 1 product
or 20% market share with 5 products doesnt matter
At the end of the day you have 20% of the market and thus the money it brings.
And a company like Coca Cola cannot claim how much more expensive it is to sell 2 diffrent Colas as to why they remove the old one.
If you remove well liked stuff from your service you always will have complainers (if they have a reason or not doesnt matter// Remeber Windows XP and how outraged people were when the Microsoft support ended in 2014, 13 YEARS after release and either 2 or 3 newer OS (at least Vista and 7 were out at that point) have been released)
If they wouldnt have SUCH a big company behind them, that drink wouldnt exist anymore. The risk is WAY to high.
Also, since they fundamentally make the same drink both drinks costs the exact same, so no money lost.
Also by diversifying your product range you actually get more attention than before (look at Cola now, they never have looked back)
Thats for example why the super exclusive iPhone is now sold in 3 diffrent sizes at release instead of waiting half a year for an "S" version (well they still sell an S version after a year but still). Apple wants the people that like big phones and the want the people that like small phones.
And coke just want to sell a drink. Give people options, step up your marketing and there you go.
If you just release it separately you still have the potential to grow your market share (look at Coke Light or the newer Coke Zero)
I drink Pepsi so it doesn’t matter
Strong enough to make drastic changes, Too weak to ease consumers in!
superb quality video, i was intrigued the whole way through
I can’t imagine the hubris of a man making the decision for replacing one of the most beloved and successful consumables the world has eve known.
The original coke was literally older than he was.
This wasn’t some technological advance. This is a man who thought he could change a flavor.
This is really going to date me. Those taste tests lasted into the late 90’s. I remember only having only Coca Cola in my house growing up. My Dad hated the flavor of Pepsi. I ran into one of those taste tests in a mall in a Sam Goody. I was able to pick out the Coca Cola. The Pepsi spokesperson was not necessarily happy with me. I’m still to this day not exactly sure why.
It's marketing, you were supposed to pick the pepsi on accident in front of the other customers, and by doing so, you sponsored pepsi without pay
I 100% can tell the difference between the drinks. I cannot put my finger quite on the difference, but there is for sure! If I had been old enough for the taste test, I would have been honest too. 🙂
@@NemoCat20 pepsi is spicy. coke is just brown
@@chrismanaloe3507 RC cola is better.
To me, Pepsi is more flat with a sweeter flavor opposed to coke. I don't like too much sweetness and more carbonation is better
Honestly, I think the taste difference mostly boils down to cane sugar vs HFCS. There's a reason many people buy "Mexican Coke" despite the price difference. As a comparison point, I tried A&W root beer with cane sugar, and it blows their HFCS root beer out of the water.
Except they switched in 1984, a year before new coke
Truth. I my local Mexican market pretty much pays its bills just buy selling Mexican Coke.
Sugar Cane very clearly superior.
@@bastian_5975 Are u saying theyre wrong? the difference is huge
90% People probably can't tell the difference despite what you may believe. Infaxr Mexican coke now has a 50/50 of being cane sugar or HFCS, the preference is illusionary. Though some claim it does effect the "mouth feel" of it, that may be an illusion as well.
I've even ran experiments on myself and my family to see if any of us could correctly guess which one was which. In many tests both were American coke and both were Mexican coke, to see if anyone could tell if they were tasting the same soda twice. Nope, none of us could.
Its probably just the allure of the glass bottle or that it's slightly less carbonated that makes it preferred for some, but as of right now, I'm pretty confident in saying 99% of people will be unable to taste the difference.
The difference between corn syrup and cane sugar is overblown, but I'm sure plenty of people can taste a difference. Also, a lot of people assume that since it has a longer and more "scientific" name, that it must be some harmful chemical. As far as I know, nutritionally it makes no difference. They're both bad for you in significant quantities.
I think the main reason why corn syrup is used so much is because the US government provides big subsidies to corn farms, which makes corn syrup very cheap.
The way people reacted over a soda formula is just insane to me. It's... soda. Anyway, very interesting documentary!
One of the most well edited video essays I’ve seen on UA-cam.
40 some odd years later, the story behind New Coke is still politically, economically and traditionally relevant, just through altered means.
What are these means
@@cujows1844 Competitive consumerism and population polarization for the sake of business.
@@cujows1844 Information warfare
I don't know exactly why, but it's just weird knowing I'll never actually know what original New Coke tastes like...
It would be funny if they tried to bring it back
I like to imagine one of the new flavors is the original New Coke formula.
i’m not sure if he brings it up in the video or not but sometime around 2019 for the release of stranger things season 3 coke did a limited rerelease of new coke using the original formula, which i was quite interested in so i bought a case. it came with two cans of new coke and two stranger things theme coke glass bottles. if you’re wondering what it tastes like i think the closest thing that i could compare the “new coke taste” to would be modern diet coke, its just slightly sweeter coke. it left the same sort of aftertaste that diet does.
TL;DR
new coke basically tastes like diet coke.
The original "original" had actual cocaine in it so idk of we will ever
They should add it to the freestyle machines
Well-written and entertaining documentary!
I love these type of videos with random things make into long and entertaining videos
I was an avid Coke drinker and worked at my parents’ grocery store during the switch. Having tasted Coke all my life and preferring it to many different drinks that I had access to, the taste of new Coke was absolutely different and much sweeter. We knew nothing of all the publicity stunts, we just knew people hated the taste.
We kept cases of the old Coke, thinking we could sell them years later but then they changed back so quickly that we didn’t sell them. We all thought the “Classic” was different from the original so we tested the old Cokes against the Classic and there was a definite difference. The Coke of today is not what we drank up to that summer.
You are correct. ✅
That's like when they put coke in a different color bottle and people said they preferred the original one.
If you can find coke made in Mexico that comes in the glass bottles still, they use cane sugar to this day. It's far better than regular coke.
@@deaj8450 They do not. Mexico switched a while ago. Coke sells glass bottles in some supermarkets that are made with cane sugar that say they're mexican but they aren't, they're just coke with cane sugar. You can go to Mexico and see that they use corn syrup.
@@n646n those are the bottles I mean. Didn't know they weren't really Mexican, but that's what I've always heard them called and as you say what is printed on them. I'm certainly not suggesting anyone go to Mexico or ship it or something to buy coke
This is essentially the soft drink equivalent to the 2019 Movie Sonic design.
Good point. 💯
but we got the bad ending timeline
@@diwajerebation4077 what do you mean
Original sonic design from original games everyone loved (coca cola)
2019 movie reveals bad design (new coca cola)
Paramount backtracks, spends a buncha money and goes to a more classic design and releases the movie with the bad design all but forgotten (coca cola classic)
nah that design was genuinely horrific. It's like if the new coke formula made it taste like dirt.
@@diwajerebation4077 wdym? they fixed the design.
I just realized (a) this is definitely something all of coke's executives have watched carefully and (b) this is probably a better and more in depth analysis of thier brand and product than thier own millionaire executives can come up with and (c) this is probably more than marketing bacherlors major learn in 4 years in a 30 min video. Emp is kind of a genius
the music choices in this video are amazing oh my god
These companies tend to forget after a while that the entire point of having a brand is consistency. Adding on top of is an entirely different ball game to completely replacing your flagship product.
I wonder if they were going for a "coca-cola was for boomers" thing in response to Pepsi's "younger generation" campaign? But yeah - companies do a mind-boggling amount of needlessly screwing with what works imo.
This could possibly be the reason why American luxury brands - Cadilac, Lincoln, and Chrysler - seem to grasp no baring of for newer generations, especially now. These brands threw away the old-school, couch-cushion, land yachts in order to appease the "sporty" and "stylish" designs the Europeans were riding on. Now, those brands are having a hard time even justifying keeping living on because they don't seem to have anything that made them.
Yes, bad management and all that happened, but the thought's still there.
Not always. That's actually been McDonald's go to strategy since the start. Ray Croc wanted to create a restaurant chain who's whole appeal was that it would be consistent no matter where you found it, since the consumer would be assured that at least they'd know what they'd be getting where ever they were. The same philosophy works with chain hotels as well.
Consistency gets you nowhere, innovation keeps you alive
@@CheeseMiser You need both, genius.
Crazy how hundreds of thousands will protest and rally because a company made a drink that studies showed was more enjoyable than their old one, but nobody says anything of the atrocities that Nestle commit lmao
Coca Cola themselves hired paramilitary to assassinate labor activists and union leaders in colombia
One incredibly simple and incredibly human factor: People react to what directly affects them.
They don't care cause it affects poor brown people thousands of miles away. No matter how much americans claim to fight racism, most of us are still like slaves to them
boo hoo hoo
What did Nestle do ?
19:06 Ow. I FELT that.
This whole video was the best coke ad ive ever watched.
Sometimes I feel like things moving too fast and people making rash decisions only happen because of the modern internet, but seeing a guy start a whole organization and make merch to oppose a soda that was only originally around for under a year grants me some sobering perspective
Thank god it’s not just us.
The internet does help magnify human behaviors, yes
It’s a different kind of privilege
Well now you know. Trust me, things moving too fast and people making rash decisions were occurring for as long as humanity existed- tens of thousands of years before the internet was invented
never forget it!
Imagine getting up one day and making a sign that reads "our children will never know refreshment" and standing outside and protesting because a soda slightly altered its formula lol.
Not sure if today’s shenanigans are less or more bizarre.
@@t65bx25 today is more. Little in human history can and will top when a few years back a bunch of people tried to declare independece from their country, failled miserably, descended into a Lawless society rulled by criminal Warlords, started starving, needed to not only betray all their values but also ask the country they declared independence from to give them food, had some killings, implemented Race based segregation and finally colapsed. All under 9 days time.
Americans are special creatures.
@@infanos3720 You're referring to Portland, or the south? I genuinely can't tell
@@ileutur6863 its not that old.
I drive around all day for work, Bless you for your videos, your a hero that doesn’t wear a cape.
I like how the TF2 guitar picks up intensity when the proposition of Southern Americans being ok with change is made.
As a veteran of the Cola Wars `84 - `88, I approve this video.
I hope none of you ever have to experience the horrors I have.
one question tho, have you sticked to your guns and stayed with coke, despite the peer pressure it gave you when you drank the new formula? or did you switched to pepsi?
Jolt Cola!..."Twice the caffeine, ALL the sugar!"
@@peterbelanger4094 💯👍 I loved that stuff!
OG gamer drink
I was there for a tour, yeah I was in the shit, I had a New Coke t shirt, so I was New Coke in the streets but I was a Coca Cola Classic between the sheets as it were.
I was in the fructose regiment myself. We got in many a sticky situation.
Back when Bill Cosby could part ways with a brand to "save his credibility" 😂
✌👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
Hearing saturn barz made me get goosebumps youre a king at this yo.
Great pacing and structure. I learned so much and it just few by
Nostalgia is the most effective marketing tactic the world has ever known. Linking people to times that are ostensibly more simple by comparison will win out in the end nearly all the time. As we stray farther into the future, there will always be part of the brain that yearns for the past. Discounting that fact is one of the biggest contributing factors to the fall of New Coke.
Don't let this distract you from the fact that I get bullied because my classmates think my videos are the worst. Please don't agree, dear josh
✌👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
2020 will be exempt from this
Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be
True. I prefer Pepsi because that's what my step dad preferred and I remember stealing Pepsi's out of the fridge as a kid to have a nice treat
The story of New Coke remains influential as a cautionary tale against tampering with a well-established and successful brand
We were taught that in my college marketing courses with New Coke as a key case study
Haha that reminds me of in my graphic design classes where we used minute maid for the same purpose, tweak the imagery of ur brand and people stop wanting ur product
Honestly, most of the complaining idiots should have been interned in an asylum.
✌👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
Thank you for your insights, Mr. President.
New Coke is actually a tale about how gullible and reactionary consumers are. People act like it almost ruined Coke but in reality it basically made them way more money in the long run
Amazing edit
In pro-wrestling, when a formerly beloved babyface starts losing the support of the audience you turn him into a heel for a little while, make the audience really hate him, and then switch him back to being a babyface. Generally the babyface is then welcomed back with open arms. The general idea is "how can I miss you if you won't go away?"
It worked for Hulk Hogan, it worked for Coca-Cola.
This is a really interesting video about consumerism. Even though I wasn’t alive to experience new coke, I’ve noticed the difference in taste between regular coke and the “Mexican coke” at chipotles and other places, the ones that still have cane sugar. I seriously prefer the cane sugar coke, even if it’s more expensive, but I know that they won’t switch back, and your video kinda proves that, even if they did switch to corn syrup. It’s a shame :(
It's too bad they don't sell a version with cane sugar in the US. Pepsi does it with Mountain Dew, so it's not unheard of.
Coke with cane sugar is really good. When I drank canned coke, it was a bit underwhelming.
My dad just goes to a Mexican store and gets a glass cola, he never gets canned
Living here in Texas allows me to buy the bottled coke and take them back to Mexico to get them refilled.
@@fffrrraannkk Gotta make sure we’re drinking our corn syrup
The most surprising thing to me was when you mentioned that Coke Classic wasn't even the same formula, since they had started using corn syrup, yet no one raised a huge fuss over that change. This means you were comparing the taste of New Coke and Coke Classic, but no one will never have the chance again to compare the taste of New Coke and Old Coke (the version from before New Coke).
You can actually, it’s called Mexican Coke
Most people outside the US drink coke that's made with cane sugar (Old Coke).
It would be funny if they brought it back and called it “Coke-Cane”.
Technically even Old Coke isn’t really the original recipe since the coca leaves now have to be stripped of cocaine. Who knows how that affected the flavor.
But Old Coke is essentially what's being sold in any country banning GMO foods, and some others I assume.
Here we use beet instead of cane sugar, but sucrose really is just sucrose.
if youve never had a soda that uses cane sugar instead of corn syrup, youre missing out.
I always thought it was a marketing trick to re-release it when people 'demanded' it to come but using corn syrup for New Coke and then using corn syrup for 'Classic Coke' might have been the most diabolical genius play I've seen. Sometimes I forget there can be multiple layers to trickery.
21:44 his statement aged like New Coke
These videos are so incredibly well researched and put together. I teach atomic structure to 15-17 year olds and I've shown several classes the video on the cold war when we've been doing radiation - they really responded to it because it was made by someone who understood what their generation found appealing and didn't talk down to them. Keep doing what you're doing and take as long as you need between videos because these are genuinely some of the best things I've found on UA-cam.
This is one of the sweetest comments I've seen. :)
It's amazing if educators are using content like this.
No doubt. I love seeing his video essays, partly because they're on such random topics that I didn't think could warrant an essay.
I'm always intrigued, and they're always fun and educational to watch even though, and maybe especially because, I have no interest to learn of these things by myself.
If only more educators were like you
I have a translated copy of the art of war which included a few modern examples of its lessons in practice afterwards.
It actually included this arguing it as an example of pepsi exerting their will upon coke through deception and cokes bounce back afterwards due to them following what Sun Tsu dubbed 'the moral law'
It baffles my mind how any company can’t fathom the backlash of removing such a popular product, like literally the most popular consumable the world has ever known.
"If it aint broke, don't fix it" will always be a timeless saying as long as humans exist.
it was “broken” because pepsi was swallowing the market
It was ultimately a huge win for them in the long run though. I doubt they regret New Coke.
I've heard somewhere that while Pepsi was the preferred drink in taste tests, people actually preferred drinking coke over longer periods of time than just a few sips.
The conclusion was that people prefer sweeter flavors in more moderation. And this was the exact issue that plagued new Coke since it was sweeter than both old Coke and Pepsi
this
That comes up a lot and even now, people take a sip and go "well that's not bad" but drink a few cans and its too sweet.
Same with photos or tv screens. We tend to prefer brighter and more saturated images...until we don't
@@807D14M0ND5 OLED is different. You get used to it
@@Vysair That's has no bearing on what I said but yeah I love my LG C1 ✌🏻
My personal new coke moment was when Bassett’s changed their wine gums recipe. Never felt more betrayed!
it's about time someone made a video about this. it hasn't been done before.
16:28 he could never win an argument with his name being Gay
I once jokingly asked a stocker for Coke if New Coke was ever gonna return, and he said if it did, it probably would be called "Space Coke".
Amongus
Doesn’t their new flavor, starlight, say “space-flavored” on it
Wait they gave that new "space flavoured" Coke now.
@@civilwarguy4740 yeah it tastes like burnt ass
@@sorensoul it tastes like graham crackers! I love it actually. Not a fan of regular coke.
At 1:17, the song "All Night" by LUXURY ELITE begins to play over a video of Mac Tonight, that particular video being iconic in the early days of vaporwave music, the genre of the song being played. The song appeared on a collaboration album titled "Mac Tonight." The name of the other artist in the collaboration?
SAINT PEPSI. It all comes full circle.
Time for my monthly binging of all of emps vids