"What we saw was an increase in awareness, an increase in
feeling good about what the company was," he said. "They were great
ads, but that 's what they were: ads. Not really good marketing
tools. … In those days, advertising was really the only
element of marketing. You put an ad on the air, consumers liked it,
everybody writes about it, the bottlers felt happy, and there was
nothing else."
In advance of New Coke, Mr. Zyman says the company ramped up ad
spending, doubled price promotion and employed deep discounts -- to
no avail. "The only thing left was to change the product or change
the advertising," he said.
"I think we were lazy in really recognizing that we needed to
reactivate or reposition the brand. If we had done that through an
advertising process, I don't think New Coke would have ever
happened, but there was such resistance to any kind of change in
the advertising position of the brand that we introduced a change
in the taste," Mr. Zyman said. "I know, you'll say that 's
ridiculous, and I agree. But it happened."
What ensued is one of the most intriguing marketing case studies
in history as Mr. Zyman and a host of other Coca-Cola executives
worked around the clock for two-and-a-half months trying to right
the New Coke mistake. By the end of it, "I couldn't even hold a
glass in my hand I was so tired," Mr. Zyman said.
Today Mr. Zyman resides in Florida, serving as a private adviser
to a few CEOs and "trying to fix" his "damn golf game." He says he
counts himself lucky to have been a "part of some very important
things." And at the top of that list was being one of the people
that tried "to change the ways of the Coca-Cola Co."
He doesn't harbor any secret desires that people would just
forget about New Coke already. "I think New Coke was a seminal
moment for the Coca-Cola Co.," he said. "New Coke kind of shook the
company up." Asked whether New Coke was a failure or a success, Mr.
Zyman responded immediately. "A success. Are you kidding me?"
In an interview with Ad Age , Mr. Zyman recalled those days
between the New Coke launch on April 23, 1985, and the reversal on
July 10, 1985. This is an edited excerpt from the interview:
I was sitting in Atlanta. I was manning the press conference
while Roberto was in New York, and a reporter said, "What if it
doesn't work?" and Roberto said, "You don't understand -- it's
going to work." I turned around and said, "Oh, man, the press is
going to kill us." And, sure enough, by the next day we knew we
were in trouble.
Eleven days later [I was working] on the return of Coke,
coming up with something. I actually had to do a speech in Europe,
so I called all the people, the packaging companies, strategy, and
everything to Monte Carlo which is where I was giving my speech. I
went overseas because I didn't want to get caught here in the U.S.
[working on the return of Coke].
As we looked at the can we said, "We've got to overdo it.
We've got to say to consumers this is the original." We tried
Coca-Cola Original, Coca-Cola No. 1, just plain Coke. I actually
still have a lot of the mockups. But Classic was the one that was
the best. It said we're not fooling around. This is it. (The brand
would be called Coca-Cola Classic until 2009.)
[At one point] we were on a company plane and [President]
Don Keough turned around to me and said, "Are you doing something?"
and I said, "I am, sir," and I got up and went to the back of the
plane. That was the only time I said anything, because I couldn't
say anything. We could not say publicly to anybody that we had
questions or doubts about the fact that New Coke was a great
success. Every day we had a million interviews and said this is
going to be fantastic. That was a lie.
The next two months we were kind of managing the depression
that the system had about the fact that the greatest thing since
sliced bread wasn't working. We eventually got to the point where
management and everybody decided we needed to bring [the original
formula] back to appease those people who weren't happy. Peter
Jennings announced it. And that night the return of Coke made the
news on all three networks.
It was very exciting at the beginning, because all of a
sudden we had almost a rebirth, a renaissance of the brand.
Consumers were looking at it and business was booming. Consumers
wanted the brand; they appreciated the brand; they knew what the
brand was all about. And it was a great opportunity for us to
actually reformulate the overall proposition of the brand. But the
system was very tired, the bottlers were very tired. Remember, a
bottler is in a small community. They were attacked by their
neighbors. People in the golf club made fun of them and all that .
They wanted a break. So the company lost focus again. I got very
frustrated, and I left the company. (Mr. Zyman returned in
1993 as chief marketing officer for Coca-Cola.)