Crystal Pepsi
[related: PepsiCo, Tab Clear]
Short-lived clear cola drink released by PepsiCo at the height of the cola wars. Circulated between 1992 and 1994, Crystal Pepsi marked an effort by its parent company to capitalize on new marketshare created by consumer interest in "health-adjacent" products [1] and New Age branding. The product experienced modest success in the months following its unveiling, garnering over 1% of the "refreshment beverage" market [2]. Approximately nine months after Crystal Pepsi's debut, the Coca-Cola launched Tab Clear, a low-quality saccharine-sweetened beverage of similar appearance. Tab Clear's off-puttingly medicinal taste, syrupy consistency, and general air of artificiality proved repellent to consumers - so much so, that Crystal Pepsi, along with other "tighty white" products, experienced an almost immediate decline in sales. In 1995, it was revealed that Coca-Cola had chosen to release one of the lowest scoring of Tab Clear's perspective formulas, leading to rumours that it was a "kamikaze" job - a deliberate effort to undermine not only the success of Crystal Pepsi but the commercial New Age movement more broadly. Ironically, the first clear cola product was released by Coca-Cola itself in the mid-1950's: "white coke" - a secret vodka-containing one-off released in partnership with the Soviet Union.
- ↑ Reportedly instigated by the relaunch of Ivory soap with the slogan "99 & 44/100 percent pure". The industry's fixation on clear and/or white products, dubbed "tighty whiteness", was based around the public's tendency to equate purity and quality with an absence of color. Unsurprisingly, media theorists retroactively pointed towards "tighty whiteness" as an example of widespread implicit racism.
- ↑ Roughly equivalent to a billion dollars.