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Introduction
Coca Cola was invented in 1885 and became the worlds most popular soft drink. Coca Cola strongly indoctrinated American culture. In 1985 the company replaced its original drink with a new one promising an improved taste. The introduction strongly decreased the companys performance. To reflect on the conditions of Coca Colas decision, the essay explores Coca Colas impact on American values, its rivalry with Pepsi Coke and the introduction of the new coke. 1. Main 2.1 Coca Colas Impact on American Culture Coca Cola managed to become part of American values especially during the two World Wars. Democracy and Coca Cola became the unofficial American values. American soldiers would get a bottle of coke for an extremely cheap price. Through war the beverage was spread all over the world. 2.2 Rivalry with Pepsi Around 1963 Coca Colas number one competitor Pepsi was able to gain significant market share in the Coke industry by choosing young people as their consumer target group. The Pepsi Generation advertising campaign enabled Pepsi to directly compete with the traditional Coca Cola. In addition to that, Pepsi managed to prove a slide taste preference of consumers for the Pepsi Coke. This however, provoked Coca Cola to conduct a high number of market researches concerning consumer preference. Based on these researches Coca Cola decided to replace the old taste with a new and improved one. After announcement in 1985 share prices dropped from $1,625 USD to $700 USD and triggered strong protests by traditional Coca Cola drinkers. Some people felt a limitation in their basic rights by not being able to choose for the traditional drink. Furthermore, the press put Coca Colas decision in in a bad light. As a result, Coca Cola experienced relatively low performance for four months until the company decided to reintroduce the old drink. 2.3 Introduction of the new Coke Coca Colas decision was based on numbers from a broad market research that argued in favour of a change. However, Coca Cola failed to quantify and consider the emotional attachment to an important customer group: the traditional Coca Cola drinkers. The company with the brand that Americans used to connect to was suddenly working against them by taking their traditional drink away. Furthermore, Coca Cola did not react to strong consumer protests. The company ignored them believing it to be part of an education process and applied a wait-and-see approach. The time the company waited turned out to be a period of low performance. On one hand, if Coca Cola had been more aware of its original brand value to customers it could have avoided this period of low performance. On the other hand, Coca Cola learned a lot from this little crisis and the reintroduction of the traditional coke boosted the companys performance and reassured a dominant position in the coke market. The companys belief that taste preference would be a significant factor in the Coke consumption pattern was wrong. 2. Conclusion This paper reflected on the conditions of Coca Colas decision. It showed that the company could have avoided a period of low performance by consider emotional attachment of the customer to the product. Still it is arguable if the Coca Colas strategic move was something wrong as failure enabled the

company to learn and improve.