The story of why Crystal Pepsi failed is a weird one, involving stubborn executives,
vague marketing, Van Halen, and a bit of corporate sabotage.
It might not have ruled the 1990s soda market like Pepsi intended, but the story of this
failed soda is anything but boring.
Here's why Crystal Pepsi was a total flop the first time around.
Mind games
Crystal Pepsi was doomed from the beginning, according to a theory from Tristan Donovan,
author of Fizz: How Soda Shook Up the World.
Donovan says because both Pepsi and Coca-Cola trained their consumers since the 19th century
to associate brown soda with cola flavor, launching a clear cola in 1992 was too much
of a sensory disruption.
Clear soda later became associated with a lighter, citrus flavor, thanks to the popularity
of 7-Up and Sprite, so a cola-flavored clear soda just felt off.
But it wasn't just the color ...
Flavor fail
Now-retired Crystal Pepsi creator David Novak talked to Business Insider about just what
went wrong with the product and made a fascinating admission: If he had just listened to his
staff, it might have stayed on the shelves, instead of being discontinued in 1995.
He pitched the idea for Crystal Pepsi in '92, the same year he took over as Pepsi's COO,
hoping to cash in on the rising popularity of "pure" products.
"Crystal Clear.
Crystal Clear Amoco Ultimate."
But it didn't taste much like original Pepsi.
Novak recalled,
"The bottlers told me, 'David, it's a great idea, and we think we can make it great, but
it needs to taste more like Pepsi.'
And I didn't want to hear it.
I was rolling the thing out nationally, and I didn't listen to them."
In hindsight, Novak says one of the big reasons for the soda's failure was the taste.
He learned from the failure, too, and says that going forward, he started listening more
to employee input.
Total mystery
While consumers had been groomed to associate brown with soda, it's entirely possible the
right kind of marketing could have made us change our collective minds, and think clear
cola was pretty revolutionary.
But according to Kyle Murray, Professor of Marketing at the University of Alberta, that's
another key mistake made in the Crystal Pepsi rollout: No one bothered to explain why we
needed a clear cola.
The commercials didn't help.
This Super Bowl launch ad is a sequel of sorts to Van Halen's iconic "Right Now" music video,
and it also features the song.
It's full of vaguely inspirational statements … but little about why consumers should
try the beverage.
Unclear ingredients
By the time Crystal Pepsi hit shelves, people were starting to move away from sugary, heavy
soft drinks.
Pepsi wanted consumers to think of Crystal Pepsi as a healthier option ...
"You're really pushing this new Crystal Pepsi.
What makes it different from every other soft drink?"
… but as this training video makes clear, they didn't have much to work with …
"It's actually a crystal clear cola, with 100% natural ingredients, no preservatives,
no caffeine."
That may be true, but Crystal Pepsi was also filled with high fructose corn syrup, just
like regular Pepsi, and only had 20 fewer calories per 12 ounce can than the full-strength
stuff.
That's hardly a diet cola, and there were already caffeine-free versions of Pepsi's
cola products available.
What was the point?
Soda sabotage
When Pepsi came out with Crystal Pepsi, they sunk a huge amount of money into rolling out
a new product.
According to marketing expert Stephen Denny's book Killing Giants, Coca-Cola saw that as
an opportunity to sabotage Pepsi and do some damage to its bottom line.
Coca-Cola marketing guru Sergio Zyman realized,
"[A] way to ambush Crystal Pepsi is to do a kamikaze on them commit harm and kill them
in the process."
This was achieved by releasing Tab Clear, an unexciting, sugar-free diet drink meant
to make consumers think Crystal Pepsi was also an unexciting, sugar-free diet drink.
It was only on the market for a few months before it sank, and it dragged Crystal Pepsi
down with it.
Epilogue
When Pepsi first brought Crystal Pepsi back in 2016, Business Insider reports that it
didn't just sell out, it sold out fast.
Why?
Nostalgia for the '90s was a big part of it.
The American Marketing Association says the round two success of Crystal Pepsi was because
it was a curious relic of the '90s and it was marketed successfully the second time
around.
Fans took to Twitter to talk about how they were rediscovering part of their youth, even
going as far as calling Crystal Pepsi "liquid history."
It's more than a little ironic, considering how the product originally flopped because
so many people just didn't know what to make of it.
Add a few decades into the equation, let the confusion become nostalgia, and you finally
have a winning formula.
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