Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola

[Brent Burns]

I just saw an interesting piece about the Empires of the Industry on History Channel, and it was about Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola.

I learned about two actual blunders that Coca-Cola made that kept Pepsi-Cola in business, yet both companies do help each other in the soft drink market.

The first blunder that Coca-Cola made was that someone from Pepsi-Cola had to swallow his pride and asked Woodruff, at that time the CEO of Coca-Cola in the 1920s to offer Pepsi-Cola. However, Woodruff rebuffed him and told him that Pepsi-Cola had nothing. The rest is history. This guy had a resolve and sold Pepsi-Cola for 5 cents during the Great Depression and in several months, they went from the verge of bankruptcy to $100,000 profitable.

The second blunder as we all know very well. It was around 1975 when Woodruff died (he was 95 years old at that time), and the new CEO of Coca-Cola felt that the company needed to be aggressive and market the company in a new way. You all may recall the New Coke fiasco. Everyone at that time did not like the taste of New Coke and felt that someone had died in the family, felt that the company took away that tradition, etc. As a result, Coca-Cola Classic came back.

At the end of the documentary, this guy said that who would know what the soft drink market would be like if Coca-Cola especially Woodruff would buy Pepsi-Cola at the time. To me, it may be a blunder, but it is nice to have the soft drink market diversified, not monopolized.

Like the old Dr. Pepper ad in the early 1980s, I still like their catchy phrase, "Be a Pepper, and set me loose...."

[Sonny]

New Coke was introduced in early 1985. Not 1975. Quite the fiasco here in ATL as I remember it 20 years ago.

[Brent Burns]

New Coke was introduced in early 1985. Not 1975. Quite the fiasco here in ATL as I remember it 20 years ago.

My bad. Thanks for the correction.