The Bizarre Parable of New Coke, Chapter One: Sweeter, Stranger, Strange

Summary

Ridiculous History: The Bizarre Parable of New Coke, Chapter One – “Sweeter, Stranger, Strange”

Podcast: Ridiculous History by iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Ben Bowlin, Noel Brown
Super Producer: Max Williams
Air Date: May 21, 2026
Episode Description: Ben and Noel dive into the surprisingly wild story behind New Coke—the infamous mid-1980s reformulation of Coca-Cola—offering a blend of humor, history, and cultural analysis in this first half of a two-part series.

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Overview:

This episode explores the strange and infamous chapter of American consumer history known as “New Coke.” The hosts dig into why Coca-Cola, the world’s most iconic soft drink, decided to radically change its classic recipe in 1985, how the decision was made, the social and cultural implications, and the backlash from the public. They also set up part two, hinting at corporate intrigue, business missteps, and how brand nostalgia can override logic.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal & Regional Soda Preferences

• The hosts begin by poking fun at their own and each other’s relationships to soda, referencing the regional “pop” vs. “soda” language divide, and discussing their (lack of) soda drinking habits.
  • [01:42] Noel: “I am a DDP man. That means Diet Dr. Pepper.”
  • [02:04] Max: “As a native Midwesterner, the word pop is just burned into my memory. But it has been many years since I’ve had a soda pop.”

2. Soda’s Role in Southern and American Culture

• Coke as a cultural institution, especially in Atlanta, Georgia, but also a symbol of American nostalgia and brand loyalty.
  • [02:56] Noel: “It is the taste of a generation.”
  • [03:19] Ben: “We know that soda is not for everyone, and we are not going to pretend it’s the most healthy thing you can drink. But hot dog, folks. Is it tasty?”

3. The Birth of Coca-Cola – A Brief Origin Story

• John S. Pemberton, a Civil War veteran and morphine addict, invented Coca-Cola first as an alcoholic, coca-leaf-infused tonic (“Pemberton’s French Wine Coca”), later reformulated to satisfy prohibition laws in Atlanta.
  • [10:26] Ben: “[Pemberton] was actually a colonel in the Civil War for the [Confederates] ... picked up a morphine addiction.”
  • [11:05] Ben: “[The original] was ... alcohol and caffeine ... Up until about 1903 ... Coca Cola Classic ... did contain cocaine. What can we say? It was a different time.”
  • [13:16] Noel: “The cocaine byproduct ... extracted from coca leaves ... is sold to a pharmaceutical company and often used ... because of the numbing effect ...”

4. The Cola Wars & Market Pressures

• Post-WWII, Coke’s dominance slips (market share drops from 60% to under 24% by 1983).
• Pepsi’s sweeter taste wins blind taste tests, especially with young people, and is marketed as “cool” and “edgy,” unlike Coke’s staid image.
  • [15:04] Noel: “I am always bummed out when I go to a place and realize they only sell Pepsi products ... Coke just unequivocally tastes better than Pepsi.”
• Coke’s deal with McDonald’s and vast vending/distribution network keep it afloat, but the threat is real.

5. The Advent of ‘Project Kansas’

• In 1980, new CEO Roberto Goizueta (“move fast and break things” type) launches a secret initiative to reformulate Coke (code-named ‘Project Kansas’ after a beloved company photo).

  • [21:14] Ben: “They decided to create their own version of Skunk Works ... a top secret operation ... We're going to mess with the original formula and no one can know.”

• The new formula is continually tested, showing consumers prefer sweeter drinks in short taste tests.

  • [25:44] Ben: “Most of the taste tests tell them that when customers don’t know which pop ... they tend to prefer Pepsi ... so they futzed with the Holy Grail, the secret formula for Coca Cola. They mainly made it sweeter.”

• But focus groups show a strong emotional resistance to changing the recipe.

  • [31:00] Ben: “Somewhere around 10–12% of customers weren’t just saying they didn’t like this new flavor. They said they were deeply angry at the idea that anybody would replace Coca Cola. ... That’s a very visceral reaction to something as mundane as soda pop.”

6. Corporate Drama and the Rollout

• The bottlers (third-party companies who actually make Coke for local distribution) play a huge role, pressuring Coke to launch the new product after loving the results themselves.
• Company leadership fiercely debates whether New Coke should replace the classic recipe entirely or exist alongside it. Goizueta’s previous success in other markets convinces him the total replacement is the right move.
  • [36:02] Ben: “He argued the company needs to make the change. Not an addition to the product line, but a full replacement. And he says, we’re not doing it in secret. We’re doing it publicly. It is New Coke or no Coke.”
• On April 23, 1985, New Coke launches and the old Coke is discontinued.

7. Immediate Fallout and Notable Press Moments

• At the product launch press conference, Goizueta is grilled about why the change was needed and whether Diet Coke would also be altered:
  • [37:47] Ben/Goizueta: “No. And I didn’t assume that this is a success. This is a success.”
• Despite negative focus group predictions, initial sales go well … but as the hosts ominously foreshadow, this won’t last.
  • [38:35] Ben: “For a time, New Coke was indeed a success story. Until it wasn't.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “What if it was this, but bad?”

  • [05:27] Noel, summing up failed product “Tab” and foreshadowing New Coke’s issue.

• “You know who did take something that everybody loved, and thought, ‘What if it was this, but bad?’ Well, it was the Coca-Cola company.”

  • [05:34] Noel, directly addressing the episode theme.

• “Drinking carbonated stuff through a straw? … It’s unusual, man.”

  • [24:09] Noel, commenting on the iconic Coke marketing photo that gave Project Kansas its name.

• “It is the type of stuff that sounds awesome in a boardroom, but ... people in general ... tend to dislike change, especially if we feel a nostalgic or emotional relationship with the status quo.”

  • [31:00] Ben, on ignoring focus group warnings about changing Coke’s recipe.

• “For a time, New Coke was indeed a success story. Until it wasn’t.”

  • [38:35] Ben, setting up the fall for part two.

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Coca-Cola History and Pemberton’s Origins – [09:30] to [13:32]
• Cola Wars and Market Shifts – [14:03] to [17:49]
• Project Kansas and Taste Test Data – [21:14] to [29:44]
• Public Sentiment and Bottler Dynamics – [29:44] to [32:23]
• The Decision & Rollout Debate – [32:36] to [36:26]
• New Coke Launch & Press Conference – [36:26] to [38:35]

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Tone and Style

• The hosts maintain a sardonic, self-aware, and often irreverent tone, riffing on product nostalgia, business hubris, and the very concept of “sacred” brands.
• The episode is laced with regional pride, personal anecdotes, and asides about related pop culture references (e.g., SNL, Birthday Boys, Beverly at World of Coke).

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Concluding Foreshadowing & What’s Next

• The episode ends on a cliffhanger, promising that the real chaos of the New Coke saga—public outcry, marketing backfires, and conspiracy theories—will unfold in the next installment.

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Summary Takeaway

Ridiculous History turns the tale of New Coke into a lively, funny, and surprisingly nuanced exploration of how brands, nostalgia, and corporate decision-making collide. Part one leaves the listener both amused and eager to hear just how wild the aftermath of “New Coke” really got.

Transcript

[Ben Bullock]

Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartradio. Welcome back to the show, fellow ridiculous historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning. Tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth, the legend, our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Woo hoo, Max Crystal Pepsi Williams and Crystal Gravy Williams. That's a SNL shout out. That's Mr. Noel Brown. I am Ben. I'm Ben Bullock.

[Noel Brown]

Yes, that's right. That is who you are. And I just have a question, man. Is that a performative thing? Do people just. Are they compelled to do it by habit? What is it indicating? Even refreshment? Satisfaction?

[Ben Bullock]

I think it's nostalgia. I think it's also something people have been brainwashed into doing. But folks, if you like us, have spent a lot of time in the Southeast, you recognize that pop and that maybe there's some science to it. Maybe aspirating like that makes the water a little spicier. Aspirating. Yeah. This is, this is our story about something just patently ridiculous. And guys, are we soda fans. I don't think either of you guys are really on the pop.

[Noel Brown]

I am a DDP man. That means Diet Dr. Pepper.

[Ben Bullock]

Oh, okay.

[Noel Brown]

I think it is the superior diet soda. I used to be a DC man, but now I'm exclusively a DDP man. And other than that, only fizzy water. And lately I've been making pomegranate fizzy water spritzers, which is kind of like a soda that you make at home.

[Ben Bullock]

Nice. What about you, Max?

[Max Williams]

Personally, a, I love that you dropped the pop reference right there. Of course, as a native Midwesterner, the word pop is just burned into my memory. But it has been many years since I've had a soda pop.

[Noel Brown]

Whoa.

[Max Williams]

Yeah, well, a Coca Cola and most soda pops are not conditioned. But also before that, it was a very rare occasion. I don't know, I liked soda when I was younger, but I don't know, around my mid-20s, I just stopped drinking it.

[Noel Brown]

Well, it is bonkers to me that some people just drink it as their only source of fluid.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, it's their source of hydration. This is a special occasion for me, guys. I'm holding Coca Cola. Zero. I don't know if I could take the unleaded here in my ancient years.

[Noel Brown]

You know when I'll have the unleaded occasionally, Ben, and only then is on an airplane, I will get a full flavored Coke because they don't give you the whole can and it's with ice. So it's just sort of like ooh what was that like? Let me remind myself what that tastes like. And it is the taste of a generation.

[Ben Bullock]

And it will taste different on a plane due to the high altitude. Oh, evolved.

[Noel Brown]

Tastes a little bit better.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, maybe. We know that soda is not for everyone, and we are not going to pretend it's the most healthy thing you can drink. But hot dog, folks. Is it tasty? You can find all sorts of spins on the basic ingredients, right? Sugar, flavored syrup, carbonated water, a little bit of acid.

[Noel Brown]

Some sodas, like what makes it really kick, really kicks it up a notch.

[Ben Bullock]

Subsodas like Coca Cola or Pepsi, you know them all the world round. And then others are more regionally famous, like, have you guys ever tried cheer wine? Or Dr. Enough.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, Dr. Enough. It's just enough. Ben, I think I mentioned to you the other day that I've been really enjoying rewatching it, watching some of for the first time, a sketch comedy show called the Birthday Boys. And they did a fantastic sketch where there's that old trope of like, you know, the two guys that know the secret recipe to Coca Cola and are never allowed to like, fly on the same plane together or even like, you know, I guess the lore, the exaggerated version goes be in the same room together. Well, in this Birthday Boys sketch, they're best friends and they're. One of them is like on an interview show and he's asking about, so what's the deal with the whole, like, you and the other guys? Oh, he's right over there. We drove here together. We're going to go to a movie later. You want to come? And then the guys that know the Pepsi recipe are also there. And then later on, the two guys that know the Tab recipe saunter in and nobody cares about what happens to them.

[Ben Bullock]

Oh, my gosh. The only person I knew who unironically drank Tab was our old mentor and original boss, Roxanne Reed. She actually liked it. I thought it was a bit for years.

[Noel Brown]

I don't understand what Tab is. I think it's basically just like generic diet cola that doesn't taste like anything in particular. But I can't really speak to it then. Cause I've never had the pleasure.

[Ben Bullock]

I've had the unfortunate experience. It answers the question, I guess some customers have where they're drinking a different soda and they say, what if this tasted terrible, Right?

[Noel Brown]

What if it was this but bad?

[Ben Bullock]

Mm. Kind of like Dr. Pepper. 23 secret ingredients and they're all poop.

[Noel Brown]

Now, Ben, you know, I'm a Dr. Pepper man. Although I'm really more of a, of a DDP man, but I will occasionally have a full flavored one of those as a treat as well. But Ben, you know who did take something that everybody loved and thought, what if it was this? But bad? Well, it was the Coca Cola company.

[Ben Bullock]

That's right.

[Noel Brown]

That's what today's episode's all about. That is they didn't think that's what they were doing. They thought they were being real crafty and smart and they were selling the public a new idea that this is going to, you know, take, take Coke into the future. And of course, as we sit and record this, and as we sit most days of our lives, we find ourselves in the fair metropolis that is Atlanta, Georgia, home of the Atlanta Braves, chicken wings and Coca Cola. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ben Bullock]

Guaranteed Human. As you know fellow ridiculous historians, yours truly, we recently got back from, from Baha Mar in Bahamas. We had the most amazing time. One of my favorite things, and I'm just gonna name one, and you know,

[Noel Brown]

I got my arm twisted to do a bit of immersion therapy in the form of kicking it with some flamingos. And our avian experts there that guided us through this experience were absolutely fantastic and I ultimately had a great time despite my crippling fear of birds. Plan your own [e-mail].

[Jonas Brothers]

hey guys, it's us, the Jonas Brothers.

[Ben Bullock]

I'm Joe.

[Noel Brown]

I'm Kevin.

[Jonas Brothers]

And I'm Nick. And guess created our own podcast called hey Jonas.

[Noel Brown]

We invented a podcast.

[Jonas Brothers]

Well, we didn't invent it. We, we just contributed to it.

[Noel Brown]

First people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

[Jonas Brothers]

Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio

[Noel Brown]

app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonas Brothers]

Just listen.

[Ben Bullock]

We don't care where you hear it.

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[Ben Bullock]

And you've probably heard countless stories from the Great Soda War, how companies work to keep their recipes secret or how this is a true story. Folks. Pepsi was briefly a naval force, but today we're looking at something different. This spicy little sip of ridiculous history is coming to us from none other than, as you said, Noel, Atlanta's own Coca Cola. We can all agree Coke is a massive success story, but we can also agree they did not get everything right. So grab your favorite trashy snack of choice. What goes better with a soda? We leave it to you. This may be a two parter, or dare we say a two liter. Perhaps the best example of a swing and a miss by our friends at Coke is something called New Coke.

[Noel Brown]

New Coke.

[Ben Bullock]

And stay tuned for some conspiracies at the end.

[Noel Brown]

We've talked about this fellow recently, Ben. When has this come up in recent episodes talking about John S. Pemberton, the pharmacist with a pal.

[Ben Bullock]

Oh, gosh, yeah, we have talked about them in the past. I think it's recently and I can't

[Noel Brown]

remember what it was.

[Ben Bullock]

It's weird because we have a bit of a bubble of information. Folks, Max, Noel and yours truly. We're going to keep the origin story short, partially because it could be its own episode, partially because as you pointed out, Noel, we probably end up talking about this pretty often, but mainly because, folks, everybody who grew up in Georgia already knows the origin story of Coca Cola chapter and verse. Yeah, take us to Pemberton, man.

[Noel Brown]

Well, I did kind of forget that Johnny P. Not to be confused with Johnny Pemberton, who's a delightful comedian and actor, was actually a colonel in the

[Ben Bullock]

Civil War for the Batties, a Confederate colonel. He had sustained some pretty gnarly injuries and this led to him picking up an equally gnarly morphine addiction.

[Noel Brown]

Kind of a monkey on him his back. After the war, he desperately searched for something to. To. To. To kick the habit with.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, and it was the right thing to do. This is the mid-1880s. He is based in Columbus at the time and he originally comes up with something he calls Pemberton's French wine. Coca.

[Noel Brown]

Okay.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

So cocaine juice.

[Ben Bullock]

Yes. With Alcohol and caffeine.

[Noel Brown]

Let's replace my morphine addiction with alcoholism and cocaine addiction.

[Ben Bullock]

Right? Yeah. And the issue was Pemberton's French wine, Coca. It sold okay.

[Noel Brown]

What a funny name.

[Ben Bullock]

I know. But also French wine feels. It's weird to say both of those.

[Noel Brown]

It's a little redundant a bit.

[Ben Bullock]

And this concoction wasn't quite scratching the itch for him, if you get what we're saying.

[Noel Brown]

So the French invented wine or anything? It just seems like putting a hat on a hat.

[Ben Bullock]

It does, yeah. Because when Americans think of wine, they already think of France. You know what I mean? Nobody's like, wine. Oh, Spanish. Even though there are lots of Spanish wines.

[Noel Brown]

Absolutely. And some people might think of Italy, but I certainly think of France.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, right. I'm right there with you, man. So it's 1886. Atlanta and the larger Fulton county passed prohibition laws because they hated fun. And so in response, our buddy Johnny makes a non alcoholic version of Pemberton's French wine.

[Noel Brown]

He just up the cocaine quotient, right.

[Ben Bullock]

He calls it. Well, his bookkeeper tells him to call it Coca Cola. That's the basic story. And yes, as you can tell folks, we are familiar with the rumors. They are true. Up until about 1903, the original Coca Cola, Coca Cola Classic, as it would later be called, did contain cocaine. What can we say? It was a different time.

[Noel Brown]

And actually, again, this must have come up on stuff they don't want you to know. But to this day, the cocaine that would be a byproduct of the coca that's used to make Coca Cola, like, goes somewhere. It does exist. And they generate a ton of the

[Max Williams]

stuff every single year to jump in here. Great minds think alike. Like also Noel, in my mind thinks alike as well as I was about to jump in here and ask that exact same question because I was talking to a doctor friend of mine, mine, and I'm about to get this nose procedure done. She's like, oh, yeah, they're gonna numb me up. I'm like, probably with a bunch of cocaine from Coca Cola.

[Noel Brown]

That's what it is. It goes to the dental. Yes. It goes to Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. The cocaine byproduct extracted from coca leaves used to flavor Coca Cola is sold to a pharmaceutical company and often used in various topical forms because of the

[Ben Bullock]

numbing effect, I believe. So there is so much more to the history of Coca Cola. That's a drink for another day for. Let's fast forward. Skirt, skirt across. Coke's expansion throughout the U.S. and then later, across the planet, at the close of World War II, Coca Cola controls something like 60% of the entire market share. For Cola, this is a catbird seat. But we all know the problem with being the king of the hill. Kings have a tendency to fall.

[Noel Brown]

That's true. And if you take a shot at the king, you best not miss. That doesn't really apply here, but it's an expression that I enjoy.

[Ben Bullock]

Yes, and we know that Coke already, by this point, has an arch rival, Pepsi. Ooh, ah. Pepsi is hot on Coca Cola's heels. For a time, it looked as though Pepsi might win the soda wars. If you look at 1983, you see that Coke's market share, which again used to be 60%, has decreased by more than half, all the way down to under 24%. And the issue here is that Pepsi is outselling Coke in grocery stores and markets. Coke is barely hanging on because they have all these legacy deals with big institutions. They have armies of vending machines. They have an exclusivity agreement with the fast food giant McDonald's. So that's where they're making their money for sure.

[Noel Brown]

And that's obviously still very much a thing today. I am always bummed out when I go to a place and realize they only sell Pepsi products because I just think Pepsi's gross. I do not like the way it tastes. And again, not a soda drinker. But I just think it's not a local bias. Coke just unequivocally tastes better than Pepsi. So Coke did respond to this potential catastrophe of Pepsi just eating up all their market share in multiple ways. Their marketing folks believe that these aging baby boomers would become increasingly likely to drink diet sodas or maybe like, switch to water as they became more health and weight conscious over time. So any growth in what they in the industry refers to as full calorie sodas would have to come from younger customers. You know, buying things like Surge and Josta. Yeah, remember those? They sell those in schools.

[Ben Bullock]

I'm a fan of Jolt as well. And the Surge people gave me and my cohort a bunch of surge themed CDs back in the day. I think I still have one. But anyhow, what we know is that they were onto something, because these young customers are always going to be the golden goose for marketing. And it seems these kids who maybe liked the higher sugar or sweetness content, they dug Pepsi. And there's also a cultural thing that occurs because Coke is seen by part of this younger demographic as a member of the stodgy status Quo and Pepsi in contrast, is a little more exciting, a little bit more edgy. So the folks at Coca Cola started asking themselves, how do we make Coke cool again? Very important question.

[Noel Brown]

Put the cocaine back.

[Ben Bullock]

Right, right. And someone said, jeremy, you're crazy.

[Noel Brown]

Sorry about that. That's not gonn. We're going to need to do this my way.

[Ben Bullock]

At the same time, this question becomes a time sensitive question. It's no longer abstract because they can see that across the board, customers are purchasing less cola. In general, the market is, as you mentioned there, Noel, it's shifting to diet drinks and non soda soft drinks and Coke. Coke does manufacture and sell quite a lot of those alternative beverages. But they still felt the writing was on the wall. Harrumph, harrumph. Something had to be done.

[Noel Brown]

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[Ben Bullock]

Liberty. Liberty.

[Noel Brown]

Liberty.

[Ben Bullock]

Liberty.

[Jonas Brothers]

Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers. And guess what? We have some big news. What's the news?

[Noel Brown]

Huge news.

[Jonas Brothers]

We created our own podcast called hey Jonas.

[Noel Brown]

We invented a podcast.

[Jonas Brothers]

Well, we didn't invent it, we, we just contributed to it.

[Noel Brown]

First people to do podcasts.

[Jonas Brothers]

Pretty. Yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts, but this one's extra special.

[Ben Bullock]

So how did we.

[Jonas Brothers]

How do we actually come up with the name hey Jonas? Guys, I honestly don't remember.

[Noel Brown]

I think it was on a call

[Jonas Brothers]

about what we should call it and

[Ben Bullock]

well, we were thinking.

[Jonas Brothers]

I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers was. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes, I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing a

[Ben Bullock]

bit for the podcast.

[Jonas Brothers]

People could call in and say, hey Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad hey Jonas. And offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that. Guys, listen to hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen.

[Ben Bullock]

We don't care where you hear it.

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Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guest from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier this week. My guests SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

[Noel Brown]

Where does your group perform?

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We do some retirement homes.

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Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Noel Brown]

Well, and they weren't gonna just let their flag show chip legacy cash cow brand recognition beverage slip away.

[Ben Bullock]

Oh yeah, Absolutely not. Because it's still a Leviathan. Right? And it's not just a 12 ounce can or a bottle or a six and a half ounce bottle at this point. It is a piece of identity and nostalgia for a lot of people.

[Noel Brown]

So into the scene Stroll is one of those move fast and break things kind of guys. CEO by the name of Roberto Goizueta who truly takes on this attitude that nothing is sacred, not even the holiest of holy the original recipe Coca Cola. This happens in 1980. Yeah.

[Ben Bullock]

And he says, look, he first gets the position in 1980, right. And he is, like you said, he's kind of a cowboy, Right? And he's a Koch man, for sure. He had previously worked in the Bahamas for the Koch subsidiary there, which will come into play, they decided to create their own version of Skunk Works. Skunk Works is famously here in the us it is the secret arm of Lockheed Martin that works on the spy planes and the real spooky stuff.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, sort of a military Willy Wonka kind of situation.

[Ben Bullock]

Exactly, exactly. That's a great way to put it. So Coke is making their own kind of Skunk Works and the Zecs, which is I think a pretty cool term for executives. What do we think?

[Noel Brown]

I don't mind it. I don't mind it.

[Ben Bullock]

Okay, the Zecs. All right, so the Zecs go to their marketing VP at the time, a guy named Sergio Ziman, and their USA Coca Cola president, a guy named Brian Dyson. And they say, all right, we're going to have a top secret operation. We are going to mess with the original formula and no one can know. So we have to call it A code name. And we're going to call it Project Kansas. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Not to be confused with the Florida Project. There is no reason you would confuse it. I just think it's funny when these big covert things are named in such dull and uninteresting ways.

[Ben Bullock]

And what was the Florida Project again? Was that Disney?

[Noel Brown]

Disney? Yeah, it was the way it was. Like, it was the code name used so that no one would know that the Walt Disney Corporation was secretly buying up all this land on the cheap

[Ben Bullock]

in the Reedy Creek district.

[Noel Brown]

That's right.

[Ben Bullock]

We have an episode about that, too, on stuff they'll let you know.

[Noel Brown]

Also, the name of an excellent film about folks living in some of the low rent, kind of Disneyfied motels on the outskirts of Disneyland there in Florida, in Orlando. The filmmaker that did that went on to win an Oscar for Honora. It's one of his early ones, and I think it's phenomenal.

[Ben Bullock]

Awesome. Yeah. And Project Kansas you might be seeing. Hey, guys, you made such a big deal about Coca Cola being a cultural institution in Atlanta. Why is this called Project Kansas? Well, folks, it is named after an internally famous photo of a journalist named William Allen White. In the photo, he is just housing a Coca Cola. We're kidding. He's sipping it through a straw like a little punk.

[Noel Brown]

But he does look like a dainty fellow with his bowler hat on, standing at the soda fountain, just sipping away, clutching the glass, the tiny glass. And he's clutching the glass and the straw and just seems like he's having a good old time. Oh, I like this beverage here. Yum, yum. Great.

[Ben Bullock]

Drinking carbonated stuff through a straw.

[Noel Brown]

Anyway, it's unusual, man. It's unusual trim.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, well, there's a Go cop. Yeah, if it's got ice. Yeah, that changes the equation.

[Max Williams]

Also such a small, like, cup I'm looking at now.

[Noel Brown]

I think that was back when they mixed it on the. And, yeah, on the fly. And it was. Yeah, the soda jerks. And I think they did use sort of smaller cups back in those days.

[Max Williams]

And there's a guy in the background who's just drinking it without a straw. Straight up.

[Ben Bullock]

True. Yeah.

[Noel Brown]

Look like a couple of. It look like a bunch of gangsters. So, like they're about to do a heist. Actually, everyone except our man in the front, he just looks like an old man that wandered onto the scene. And then these G men are in the back enjoying their sodas a little more, you know, covertly.

[Ben Bullock]

And this, this photo, please do look it up.

[Max Williams]

If you.

[Ben Bullock]

If you get A second again. That journalist is named William Allen White, Kansas journalist. Koch loved this photograph. They had used it in all sorts of marketing campaigns. And if you walked around the zec's offices, you would see that several of them had prints of this photo, large print prints that they would hang up on their office walls. So that's why they called it the Kansas Project. Sergio and Brian are looking back at the data they have from numerous blind taste tests, surveys, and focus groups. And they emphasize the taste test because most of the taste tests tell them that when customers don't know which pop or soda they're drinking, they tend to prefer Pepsi because it has a sweeter taste.

[Noel Brown]

Bonkers to me, man. Bonkers. I mean, it's like Coke has a flavor. Pepsi just kind of tastes like overly saccharine syrup water.

[Ben Bullock]

Do you guys think that people drink? Because I know a lot of people order at a bar, like a whiskey and a Coke or a Jack and Coke or something. Do people do that with Pepsi?

[Max Williams]

Yes, they very much do. Like, I. I have, like, you know, I still have, like, family back in, like, Michigan and stuff like that. And they'll talk about, like, oh, yeah, I went to the car, the bar, and got a jacket. Pepsi. I'm like, a what? And it actually sounds, like, foreign to you. It's like, what is this? What is this cocktail? I've never heard of.

[Noel Brown]

But much like restaurants, wouldn't particular bars tend to have a Coke or Pepsi, not both.

[Max Williams]

Yes. So at least in my experience in Atlanta, we basically get all your soda boxes from a specific distributor. So you get, like, all that, and they usually will have Coke. That distributor will either have Coke or Hell of Pepsi or some, like, other things. So, yeah, that's how it's exactly the same as it would be like chains, like, you know, I think, was it KFC has Pepsi products, but that's right, McDonald's. Yeah.

[Ben Bullock]

Because they're part of Yum Brands.

[Noel Brown]

Taco Bell as well. And while I, you know, I can't stand Pepsi, I do love a Baja Blast.

[Max Williams]

But in Atlanta, you know, it's just such a Coke area that, like, everything is. It's like. I remember being like, we were just talking about one time just in general, and it was massively more expensive to even just do Pepsi, I think.

[Noel Brown]

And I want to say in the Midwest, Pepsi's kind of king still in

[Ben Bullock]

the Midwest and in the Pacific Northwest. And yeah, what you're saying there, Max, ties into this idea of monopolization of distribution channels, which is another part of Coke's success, to be quite honest, as well as Pepsi's. And. And this marketing is confusing to Sergio and Brian because as we mentioned earlier, they already had other research that's told them that a lot of people were shifting away from the calorie heavy, super sweet stuff. So why do these blind taste tests seem to emphasize really sweet things? It might be because the first sweet sip is cool, but it doesn't mean you would want a hundred other sips of equals sweetness. Still, the facts are the facts. So these guys went back and they futzed with the Holy Grail, the secret formula for Coca Cola. They mainly made it sweeter. Logical move. And then they put that secret, still very sweet soda into fresh rounds of taste tests. So now you would have like three cups, you would have a little cup of unidentified Pepsi, a little cup of secret Coca Cola, and a little cup of what they were not yet calling New Coke. And this gets really interesting because they do some of these taste tests in the southeastern United States, the historic cultural stronghold of Coca Cola, and the customers there seem to prefer the new flavor. And then once somebody unveils the results and says, hey, this is also a Coca Cola product, the brand loyalty kicks in, guys. The brainwashing kicks in. And they say, oh, this is Coke. Well, I love Coke, so I love this for sure.

[Noel Brown]

That's what they're hoping anyway. I mean, you know, because it is. There's a certain amount of nostalgia at play, you know, in a brand like that that has such historical roots and all of the imagery and gets credited for being like, responsible for the modern version of Santa Claus and, you know, all of these things that are kind of wrapped up in American culture. And this guy kind of overplays his hand a bit in thinking that that stuff's gonna be the stuff that's going to earn them some goodwill. But in fact, what he's done here is kind of took a big old poop on all that stuff.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah. So there's a true story in the taste test. This stuff was so popular that one of their bottling companies liked it so much they threatened to sue Coca Cola if the company didn't actually roll out the product. And to explain this really quickly, because Coca Cola is such a big company, a lot of us regular consumers, Johnny Blue Jeans on the street, we're not aware that the bottling companies are going to be third parties. Pretty often they have a contract with Coca Cola proper, but they're their own thing and they just happen to have a deal that allows them to make Coke Products.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah. And as we also know, or maybe you don't, when it comes to these types of companies, you gotta like, make these orders way in advance in order to make dead deadlines for product rollouts. And it's, it's, it's a, it's a whole thing where you sometimes have to schedule these productions, like years, a year in advance sometimes. So it would absolutely be a problem if all of a sudden they didn't have that business because they've literally, you know, rejected other business in favor of being ready to go with this new product rollout for Coke.

[Ben Bullock]

And it's an interesting corporate position too, right? Interesting business arrangement because you are your own company, you are not Coca Cola. But if someone asks you what you make, you make 100% Coca Cola products. It's kind of like being a contract worker in a way. So this is all great news for Sergio and Brian. It is the type of stuff that sounds awesome in a boardroom, but the marketing is not as solid as it may have looked at first glance. People in general, as we know, tend to dislike change, especially if we feel a nostalgic or emotional relationship with the status quo. So this cracked me up. I hope we all enjoy this, too. In one of the taste tests, facts or takeaways, they found that somewhere around 10 to 12% of customers weren't just saying they didn't like this new flavor. They said they were deeply angry at the idea that anybody would replace Coca Cola. They felt personally offended. They would stop drinking the stuff entirely if this crap was going to be the new flavor. That's a very visceral reaction to something as mundane as soda pop.

[Noel Brown]

But still, most people said that they, the focus group types, they would accept the change, though they also said it would take a little time to get used to.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, and we know that this data is, again, not just coming from blind taste tests. It's also coming from surveys and focus groups. And marketing calculus at the time placed much more importance on the surveys, especially because they were less negative than the taste test. So now they're armed with the information that works best for them. Our pals Sergio and Brian are able to convince the Zecs to change Coke's Holy Grail formula in 1985. And in this conversation, they also, by the way, downplayed the. The repeated and consistent predictions of focus groups. Pretty much every focus group they asked told them the general public is not going to like it if you guys change the recipe. If you tell them that you're changing something. They associate with roller Skating rinks and summer camp and fun times as a child. They're going to hate you. What happens next has been reviewed, discussed, analyzed extensively, and obsessed over for decades. It remains a standard topic of study in business and marketing schools even today. So the first big discussion after green lighting this idea of what would become called New Coke was whether we make it a replacement entirely for the old stuff or whether we make it a new, separate addition to Coke's roster. Right. We know stuff like this had already happened recently. Diet Coke came out in 1982. Side note, Diet Pepsi came out in 1964. A little late to the game there, guys. But these bodily associates of Coke proper were already really PO'd that they had to to make Diet Coke. It threw off their whole production process. And so a lot of these companies had already sued Coca Cola over syrup price fixing, which we didn't know was a thing. And the situation was getting even stickier with the rollout of Cherry Coke. Yeah, they were divided in the boardroom from the beginning. Some members of management were concerned that this would be a win for Pep Pepsi if they had two separate versions of Coke.

[Noel Brown]

And this immediately creates a problem of brand dilution and this idea of just confusing the public, confusing their customers, and cannibalizing their own sales. But Sergio and Brian did have support from the CEO.

[Ben Bullock]

Yeah, the king is on your side. It turns out that our pal Roberto, we mentioned that he had a background in the Bahamas. He's from Cuba originally. He said, hang on, I've tried something like this in the past. Back in the early days of my career as a Coke man, I ran the Bahamas subsidiary, and we looked into local preferences. We tweaked the flavor slightly, and when we did that, we significantly improved sales in that market. So you guys, says Roberto, I'm all about refinement and replacement. It worked before for me, so why can't it work now on a larger scale? He argued the company needs to make the change. Not an addition to the product line, but a full replacement. And he says, we're not doing it in secret. We're doing it publicly. It is New Coke or no Coke. And we're also. We're gonna have different packages, and we'll have a little line that says new exclamation mark on the label. That's where we get the street name New Coke.

[Noel Brown]

Exactly. New Coke hits the market on April 23, 1985, and that same week, Coke stops production.

[Ben Bullock]

Oof.

[Noel Brown]

Of the original formula. For a while, New Coke was sold in the same Coke packaging The bottlers still had leftover labels, cartons and cans. And there was a huge press conference in New York City to announce this initiative. However, it did not go well. Pepsi was likely responsible for this, feeding reporters uncomfortable questions. Goitsueta pointed out Coke's original formula had been altered in the past. This was not anything new, he said specifically back in 1935 to get kosher certification. However, he wouldn't acknowledge taste tests as their motivation because that would have implied the first formula wasn't like the American Classic that everyone knew and loved to begin with. Instead, he got defensive, which is never a good look.

[Ben Bullock]

Not with reporters.

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, I mean, well, you know, it seems like it's par for the course these days, but still not a good look. And especially if you're, you know, it's like, that's like someone saying, you're just not getting what I'm. What my vision is here.

[Ben Bullock]

You know, you're a nasty woman. You should smile more. We're not here to vilify Roberto. You guys know who we're talking about instead. So one of these reporters asked him if Diet Coke would also be reformulated. If assuming New Coke is a success, and our CEO flipped out. He famously replied, no. And I didn't assume that this is a success. This is a success.

[Noel Brown]

I don't know, man. Just because you say it is.

[Ben Bullock]

I know.

[Noel Brown]

Doesn't mean it is.

[Max Williams]

I mean, what's a more successful rest out of ever proving somebody wrong than just vehemently denying the truth?

[Noel Brown]

Yeah, well, again, we're seeing quite a lot of that these days in this crazy making.

[Ben Bullock]

But here's the thing. For a time, New Coke was indeed a success story. Until it wasn't. And with that, we're going to pause. We can't wait to get to the second leader of this two liter episode. Please, two. Tune in for the the crazy part of the story. In our second part of the bizarre saga of New Coke. Big, big thanks to our super producer, Mr. Max Williams. Big thanks to. Oh, gosh. Does Jonathan Strickland, AKA the Twister, drink Coca Cola? Does he drink soda?

[Max Williams]

You know, I mean, he's probably an RC Cola fan.

[Noel Brown]

I bet he is. Wow.

[Ben Bullock]

Everybody's catching strays today.

[Noel Brown]

No, it's true. R.C. cole is not the worst. It's just. It's just like kind of generic. It's just generic. And everything's generic compared to Coke Classic. Especially New Coke.

[Max Williams]

Okay, no, I got a better one. I got a better one. Jonathan Strickland goes to the world of Coke. So he can stand there and only drink the Beverly.

[Noel Brown]

Oh, he loves Beverly.

[Ben Bullock]

God, Beverly is terrible. Yeah, that's the correct answer. I almost spat out my Coke Zero. For anybody who doesn't know, Beverly is best described as a war crime. That you can drink. It is. I think it's a digestive. Or. Yeah, it's a digestive, I think.

[Max Williams]

Tastes like Fernet.

[Noel Brown]

Mmm. Okay, so liquid toothpaste.

[Ben Bullock]

It's just terrible.

[Noel Brown]

Not good. And that is something that you can, I believe, still to this day, sample at the Coke Museum here in Atlanta. The world of coke.

[Ben Bullock]

Yes. That's the way that they ruined the field trip for countless school children, your faithful correspondents included. Speaking of correspondence, big, big thanks to Dr. Rachel big spinach Lance, as well as the rude dudes of ridiculous crime.

[Noel Brown]

Huge thanks to AJ Bahamas Jacobs the Puzzler, and Jonathan Strickland, AKA The Quizzter, as well as Yves Jeff Coates and Christopher Oiotis, here in spirit.

[Ben Bullock]

All right, folks, crack open a cold one for us, boy. Be back.

[Noel Brown]

See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Ben Bullock]

Guaranteed Human.