Page 6 The Skanner February 24, 2016
News
Making Soda Cool: Coke, Pepsi Rebrand in the Face of Slow Sales
NEW YORK — Coke
and Pepsi want to shake
their Big Gulp image and
cultivate a more hipster
appeal.
The two soda giants
are trying to rehabilitate
soda’s cheap image and
fetch higher prices as
Americans keep cutting
back on sugary fizz.
That means more styl-
ized cans and bottles of
Coke and the expansion
of Mexican Coke, which
is sweetened with sug-
ar instead of high-fruc-
tose corn syrup. Pepsi
is pushing “craft sodas”
and even plans to open
an eatery “honoring the
kola nut” in New York
City in the spring.
A press release for
Pepsi’s Kola House last
month was peppered
with marketing buzz-
“
and “artisanal menu.”
The idea is that its mere
existence could burnish
soda’s image, even if
most people never go.
“At the end of the day,
we just have to stay cul-
turally relevant,” said
Seth Kaufman, chief
marketing officer for
At the end of the day, we
just have to stay culturally
relevant
words, and said the
lounge would have a “res-
ident cocktail curator”
PepsiCo beverages in
North America.
Soda remains a big
PEPSICO VIA AP
By Candice Choi
AP Food Industry Writer
This rendering provided by PepsiCo shows the concept of what Pepsi’s Kola House, the first experimental
kola bar, restaurant, lounge and event space to open in the U.S. market, is expected to look like. This first-
of-its-kind hospitality venture is set to open its doors in spring 2016, with its flagship location in New York
City’s Meatpacking District.
business, with the famil-
iar sizes like 12-ounce
cans and 2-liter bottles
still accounting for the
vast majority of the mar-
ket. But Americans keep
reaching for alterna-
tives, with soda facing a
proliferation of compet-
itors and being blamed
for fueling obesity. Be-
tween 2000 and 2014, U.S.
soda sales volume fell 14
percent, according to in-
dustry tracker Beverage
Digest.
If they’re selling less
soda, Coke and Pepsi
at least want to charge
more for it by giving it
more cachet.
It’s why PepsiCo in
2014 introduced Caleb’s
Kola, which comes in
a glass bottle with the
words “Honor in craft.”
At a Beverage Digest con-
ference soon after, CEO
Indra Nooyi said soda
had lost some of its “cool
factor” and that drinks
like Caleb’s were helping
bring it back.
That cool factor comes
with a price. At a New
York City grocery store,
a 20-ounce bottle of Pep-
si was selling for $1.49,
compared with $1.99 for
a 10-ounce bottle of Ca-
leb’s.
PepsiCo also intro-
duced Mountain Dew
Dewshine that comes in
a glass bottle and is made
with sugar instead of
high-fructose corn syr-
up, and displayed a soda
called “1893” at a trade
show. Like Caleb’s, 1893 is
a reference to Pepsi’s cre-
ation by Caleb Bradham
in 1893.
“It does address the
coolness problem — or
attempts to address the
coolness problem,” said
Ali Dibadj, a Bernstein
See SODA on page 7