pepsi

normally i am a drinker of diet coke. i consume quite a lot of it, i don’t do it because i am on a diet (though shedding several pound wouldn’t go amiss) , i do it because i enjoy the taste of it. for some odd reason i think diet coke tastes better than regular coke.
recently the coke family has been added to by the arrival of diet lemon coke (lovely) and diet lime coke (mmm very nice) and unsurprisingly i have drunk a lot of both of them.
the other night, while on the way home from a club/gig where i had listened to some laptop music that had me doing a jazz chin stroke in appreciation (delectronica) i happened to pop (geddit!) into my local budgen’s express (it used to be a 7-11) and decided that i wanted a change in drink and headed over to where they keep the pepsi, i picked out a pepsi max from the less than cool fridge (why do they bother to have these fridges there is they are not even going to be cool?) paid and left. it was only when i got home that i noticed that what i had gotten hold of wasn’t a plain old regular pepsi max. no siree it was in fact a pepsi max lemon and lime twist. and let me tell you something it was a darned fine drink.
needless to say i have been back for more, several more in fact.
it reminded me of an article i once read in one of the marketing magazines that banged on about new product development (or npd in the lingo) and how it was very important, but also very difficult, for mature brands such as coke or pepsi to keep reinventing themselves not only as a brand image but also as a product (or brand extension – think kitkat cubes, or king-size twix (yummy) and you will know what i mean). the article went on and on about how much thought and consideration has to go into these things (think new coke and see how it can come a cropper… mmm should we think of the labour party before tony blair as classic labour ?) that development can take years. now i can see that with new cars or ovens or hoovers but fizzy drinks? come on how hard can it be?
apparently very. which might explain why there is only a limited range of new coke flavours on the market (lemon, lime, vanilla, cheery and for awhile there was a blueberry one). it got me to thinking what other flavours could you have? banana, orange, grape or peach ? peanut or maybe raisin ? perhaps go really healthy and add vegetable to mix diet cauliflower coke? mushy peas or sprouts? cabbage coke (mm not strike that too much foul gas coming off of that one to make it popular…) and then of course there is the perfect match of diet coke flavouring in such things as doughnuts, éclairs and cream cakes.
i am sure there are lots of other great tastes out there that can be merged with the tasted of coke and pepsi.
i do recommend the pepsi lemon and lime drink though. it’s very very tasty.

pepsi
coke