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Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi is a cola soft drink made by PepsiCo. It has been marketed in the United States and Canada initially from 1992 to 1994, and has had sporadic limited releases since 2016.
In 1991, PepsiCo's risk-taking leadership ambitiously reshaped the company. It pushed consumer research to harness the clear craze and the New Age trend and to find a healthier recipe to stimulate the slowing cola market. After 1,000 product concepts and 3,000 formulations, it discovered a lighter flavor and appearance, with modified food starch instead of caramel color, and 20 fewer calories. It is a "totally new product" which resembles standard Pepsi but reportedly tastes less "acidic".
Crystal Pepsi was launched in 1992 with a huge marketing campaign and to great success, capturing a 1% soft drink market share worth US$474 million in its first year. PepsiCo made some mistakes, and Coca-Cola launched Tab Clear as a deliberate "kamikaze" copy to sabotage Crystal Pepsi, so it was off the market in 1994. Inspired by a grassroots campaign via telephone and the Internet, it was briefly re-released sporadically in the 2010s.
The Coca-Cola Company had produced a clear cola in the past, produced as a secret one-off made as a particular political favor between General Dwight D. Eisenhower and top Soviet General Georgy Zhukov. Clear Coca-Cola, named White Coke, was produced to disguise the beverage as vodka.
The clear craze was a global marketing fad in the 1980s and 1990s, equating clarity with purity. The fad was inspired by the reintroduction of Ivory soap and its marketing slogan of "99 and 44/100 percent pure". In 1990, a Canadian manufacturer released a colorless cola, called Canadian Spirit, which it tested in Boston, New York, Washington, Toronto, and Montreal. Soft drink sales boomed in the 1980s with popularization of diet drinks, but in 1991 slowed to a 1.8% growth rate.
Pepsi-Cola North America CEO Craig Weatherup was ambitiously internally restructuring the company while launching a multi-faceted development and marketing plan to expand as a "total beverage company". This included the fast-growing and expandable New Age beverage market, with established competition from Clearly Canadian (reportedly having "built a new market in two years"), Nordic Mist, Snapple, and the waning Original New York Seltzer. PepsiCo was reportedly "a lot more free-thinking and willing to make errors [... already having] made some very good errors".
PepsiCo's internal research already had "1,000 different product concepts", but its consumer research demanded a healthier variety of cola, which was the number one soft-drink segment at 60% and yet slowing. Food technologists knew that food color strongly affects flavor perceptions, associating light flavors with light colors. Pepsi's traditional caramel coloring, which adds body and flavor, was replaced with modified food starch for body with a clear look. PepsiCo devised 3,000 formulations of a new clear drink, under consumer testing. A 12-ounce (340 g) serving of Crystal Pepsi has 134 calories compared to Pepsi's 154 calories—20 fewer. In November 1991, Pepsi-Cola publicly confirmed that it was working on a colorless version of Pepsi.
Yum! Brands chairman David C. Novak is credited with introducing the Crystal Pepsi concept. In a December 2007 interview, he reminisced:
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Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi is a cola soft drink made by PepsiCo. It has been marketed in the United States and Canada initially from 1992 to 1994, and has had sporadic limited releases since 2016.
In 1991, PepsiCo's risk-taking leadership ambitiously reshaped the company. It pushed consumer research to harness the clear craze and the New Age trend and to find a healthier recipe to stimulate the slowing cola market. After 1,000 product concepts and 3,000 formulations, it discovered a lighter flavor and appearance, with modified food starch instead of caramel color, and 20 fewer calories. It is a "totally new product" which resembles standard Pepsi but reportedly tastes less "acidic".
Crystal Pepsi was launched in 1992 with a huge marketing campaign and to great success, capturing a 1% soft drink market share worth US$474 million in its first year. PepsiCo made some mistakes, and Coca-Cola launched Tab Clear as a deliberate "kamikaze" copy to sabotage Crystal Pepsi, so it was off the market in 1994. Inspired by a grassroots campaign via telephone and the Internet, it was briefly re-released sporadically in the 2010s.
The Coca-Cola Company had produced a clear cola in the past, produced as a secret one-off made as a particular political favor between General Dwight D. Eisenhower and top Soviet General Georgy Zhukov. Clear Coca-Cola, named White Coke, was produced to disguise the beverage as vodka.
The clear craze was a global marketing fad in the 1980s and 1990s, equating clarity with purity. The fad was inspired by the reintroduction of Ivory soap and its marketing slogan of "99 and 44/100 percent pure". In 1990, a Canadian manufacturer released a colorless cola, called Canadian Spirit, which it tested in Boston, New York, Washington, Toronto, and Montreal. Soft drink sales boomed in the 1980s with popularization of diet drinks, but in 1991 slowed to a 1.8% growth rate.
Pepsi-Cola North America CEO Craig Weatherup was ambitiously internally restructuring the company while launching a multi-faceted development and marketing plan to expand as a "total beverage company". This included the fast-growing and expandable New Age beverage market, with established competition from Clearly Canadian (reportedly having "built a new market in two years"), Nordic Mist, Snapple, and the waning Original New York Seltzer. PepsiCo was reportedly "a lot more free-thinking and willing to make errors [... already having] made some very good errors".
PepsiCo's internal research already had "1,000 different product concepts", but its consumer research demanded a healthier variety of cola, which was the number one soft-drink segment at 60% and yet slowing. Food technologists knew that food color strongly affects flavor perceptions, associating light flavors with light colors. Pepsi's traditional caramel coloring, which adds body and flavor, was replaced with modified food starch for body with a clear look. PepsiCo devised 3,000 formulations of a new clear drink, under consumer testing. A 12-ounce (340 g) serving of Crystal Pepsi has 134 calories compared to Pepsi's 154 calories—20 fewer. In November 1991, Pepsi-Cola publicly confirmed that it was working on a colorless version of Pepsi.
Yum! Brands chairman David C. Novak is credited with introducing the Crystal Pepsi concept. In a December 2007 interview, he reminisced: