COLA WARS
People still think that Coca Cola and Pepsi are rivals but I would like to make sure them that their rivalry was put to an end when Diet Coke surpassed Pepsi as the second most favorite soda in America in March 2011. Not surprisingly this why you see Pepsi coming up with other brands it owns like Frito Lay, Quaker, Tropicana, to keep the company's revenue up.
A lot can be said on the gaffes that Pepsi made while handling and presenting their products to customers all over the world.
It all started in 1975 when Pepsi came in and gave competition to Coke when they held a blind taste test. The results were positive for Pepsi; more people liked the Pepsi than the Coke so in response Coca Cola came up with New Coke which turned out be a complete disaster. Pepsi flourished until they started making mistakes on their own.
Pepsi has this habit of endorsing their products with celebrities. They started with The King of Pop, Michael Jackson who got burnt while filming an ad which would leave him to eat pain killers with the rest of his life. Second was David Bowie, who sang a song for the Pepsi but unfortunately that same year Bowie was accused of sexual assault which resulted in dropping the ad immediately.
Then came the famous Madonna, she used Pepsi in her song ‘Like a Prayer’ which was banned and accused of being anti-Catholic. Pepsi was helpless.
In 1990, Pepsi and Diet Pepsi had a scare when consumers in more than 20 states found syringes in the brand's soda cans. Authorities eventually found video of a woman in Colorado who had been inserting syringes into cans.
In 1996, Pepsi had officially lost the war with Coke kicking it cans out of the market in the cover of Fortune magazine. Reports showed that Pepsi’s profits trailed by 47 percent to that of Coke. Later the CEO of Coca Cola came out with the statement which kicked Pepsi completely out “As they've become less relevant, I don't need to look at them very much anymore."
Pepsi was the drink in decline and probably it still is because I hate it when I ask the waiter to get me a coke and he replies “Sorry we have Pepsi only”.