Pepsi and Its Quest to be Number 1 Quiz

Answer: Pharmacist

Dr Pepper was invented by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas in 1885. Coca-Cola was invented by pharmacist John Pemberton in Atlanta in 1886. Pepsi followed seven years later though it was called Brad's Drink at first. Up until the age of bottled soft drinks, it was common for pharmacies to create syrups (often with 'healthful' properties) and add carbonated water to sell in a soda fountain within the pharmacy itself.

Answer: False

While Bradham advertised the drink as being able to relieve dyspepsia (indigestion), it never contained the enzyme pepsin (which it was rumoured to contain). The main ingredients, besides carbonated water, were vanilla sugar and kola nut extracts which include caffeine. As such, the tastes of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola became closer and closer with time. Pepsi is slightly sweeter and contains citric acid which Coca-Cola does not.
While both drinks originally contained Kola nut extracts, the decision to add "-Cola" to its name can be seen as Pepsi's intent to take on Coca-Cola for market share. The Cola Wars had (unofficially) begun.

In 1961, the Pepsi-Cola name was changed to Pepsi.

Answer: He started bottling his drink to sell on the open market.

In a rented warehouse, 1903s output turned into 19848 gallons of product sold in six-ounce bottles. This proved to be a better arrangement than the Coca-Cola company that sold its bottling rights for one dollar. This bottling contractor then sub-contacted some of the bottling rights. Poor subsequent contracting meant that bottles had to be sold at 5 cents each in perpetuity, meaning the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola from 1886 to 1959 remained fixed at five cents. Pepsi has no such restrictions.

In 1909, an early automobile racer Barney Oldfield became the first celebrity to promote Pepsi. He described it as "A bully drink, refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race." A subsequent advertising theme "Delicious and Healthful" was then used as the drink's motto for the next two decades.

Answer: Doubled the volume of the bottle from 6.5 oz to 12 oz.

In 1934, Pepsi introduced the 12-ounce bottle to replace the 6.5-ounce bottle (same as Coca-Cola) but still charged only five cents a bottle. Coupled with a catchy radio jingle, Pepsi started to appeal to many people who needed value for money in hard times. The jingle was sung by the Tune Twisters and was arranged in an endless loop:
"Pepsi-Cola hits the spot - Twelve full ounces, that's a lot - Twice as much for a nickel, too - Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you."

Pepsi saw its profits double in the 1930s. The extensive use of advertising especially through the new-ish medium of radio saw the battle between the two companies. These two had established themselves as the two market leaders but Coca-Cola was always ahead of its major rival in sales. Pepsi wanted that number one spot, so it had become a battle fought in the advertising world.

Answer: True

During WWII the logos for Pepsi-Cola and Coca-Cola were similar. The former was red and white and featured a swirling font. The Coca-Cola symbol was red on white, also with a swirly font (later changed to white on red). Pepsi blinked first and added blue to its logo in a wave-like shape. The combination of red, blue, and white in the Pepsi logo evoked patriotic feelings. The logo was then made into a bottle cap shape (which appeared on each bottle cap of Pepsi-Cola bottle cap exactly like the logo. The roundness of the logo, in later changes, was changed into a globe to indicate a worldwide brand.

Coca-Cola went several steps further to create a worldwide brand. The company successfully argued that sugar for the company should not be rationed like the rest of the US in WWII. Coca-Cola president Robert Woodruff in 1941 wanted "to see that every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for 5 cents, wherever he is and whatever it costs the Company." Coca-Cola was then exempt from sugar rationing but found it difficult to get bottled Coca-Cola to servicemen on the front lines in Europe. General Eisenhower asked Woodruff to establish 10 bottling plants close to the front lines to be able to distribute the product to servicemen. In all 64 new overseas bottling plants distributed 5 billion bottles of Coke to military service personnel during the war, lifting the troops' morale. This expansion also gave local people their first exposure to the drink causing the Coca-Cola system to gain unprecedented worldwide growth. From Coca-Cola's own website: "As the world emerged from a time of conflict, Coca-Cola- emerged as a worldwide symbol of friendship and refreshment".

Answer: Young people

By the 1960s, Pepsi had never caught Coca-Cola as the number one soft drinks brand. So, they targeted a new demographic - young people. In the 21st century, it would be inconceivable not to target young people in the advertising of new products. But in 1963 young people were a new demographic. Pepsi capitalised with a catchy new slogan: "Come Alive! You're the Pepsi Generation!". Through the relatively new medium of television, commercials depicted pursuing youthful entertainments like motorcycle riding, surfing and an announcer describing Pepsi drinkers "as people who saw the young view of things."

Coca-Cola advertising relied heavily on small towns, nostalgia and traditional figures. Coca-Cola was able to counteract with Hilltop: an advertisement of many young people standing on a hill each with a bottle of Coke, all singing a catchy song, "I Would Like to Teach The World To Sing". Early gains in market shares with Pepsi's "new Generation" theme was neutralised by Coke's youthful song.

Answer: Blind taste test

By 1975 advertising for both products focused on lifestyle - and how an individual's lifestyle would appear improved with the addition of the advertised product. Pepsi went back to the product themselves. They filmed ordinary people sampling two cola products without knowing which one was Pepsi and which one was Coca-Cola. The majority (it was believed to be small) chose Pepsi. This campaign alone caused Pepsi to increase its market share at Coca-Cola's expense. It did not matter that there were flaws in the design of the test: This was a marketing strategy, not a controlled scientific experiment, but it worked. Pepsi clawed into Coke's market share, actually winning in supermarket sales.

Because of Pepsi's increase in market share plus the increase in popularity of diet drinks, in 1985, Coke did the unthinkable and changed the formulation of Coke to make it sweeter and closer to the Pepsi taste. This became "New Coke", but the mistake made was that it replaced "original Coke" which was never offered as an alternative. There was an uproar. Consumers demanded the original Coke back. With drastically falling sales, Coke was forced into doing just that. Within four months, the original Coke was back but the damage had been done. Combined new and original Coke sales did not match the pre-New Coke sales. New Coke died a slow death and was eventually discontinued in 2002.

(Pepsi Stuff was a major loyalty program launched in 1996. Merchandise such as T-shirts, denim and leather jackets, logo bags, and bicycles could be purchased with Pepsi Points through the Pepsi Stuff Catalog.)

Answer: Rock and Roller

The cola wars reached a peak in 1983-4 when celebrity musicians were paid to endorse Pepsi and Coke. Coca-Cola offered Michael Jackson and his brothers $1 million to appear in one of their commercials but this was rejected. Jackson's management then approached Pepsi and asked for $5M.

Pepsi CEO Roger Enrico wanted something bold for the youth-targeted "New Generation" campaign for Pepsi. "The goal was to make Pepsi look young and Coke look old, and Michael Jackson was in fact the choice of that generation -- he was already the King of Pop, even though he hadn't declared it," said Jay Coleman, founder/CEO of Entertainment Marketing & Communications International, the person Jackson's management approached to broker a deal. Enrico baulked at the astronomical price tag but was convinced when told that Jackson would re-write his massive "Billie-Jean" single (from his current mega-smash album "Thriller") as the jingle:

"You're a whole new generation, you're dancin' through the day
You're grabbin' for the magic on the run
You're a whole new generation, you're lovin' what you do
Put a Pepsi in the motion
The choice is up to you hey-ey

You're the Pepsi generation.
Guzzle down and taste the thrill of the day
And feel the Pepsi way
Taste the thrill of the day
And feel the Pepsi way."

Pepsi's sales of $7.7 billion in 1984 were 35% higher than 1982's sales and an increase in market share while Coca-Cola's dropped a corresponding amount. Pepsi signed a second, $10 million deal with Jackson with his "Bad" album and tour 1987-88. The initial deal with Pepsi was United States only, the second one was global, covering over 20 countries during the singer's world tour.
The trend of Pepsi signing music celebrities continued with Lionel Richie, Madonna, Beyonce and Britney Spears all paid highly to endorse Pepsi.

In 1989, Coca-Cola hired Paula Abdul to promote its new drink - Diet Coke.

Answer: Yes

Pepsi (and its archrival) have introduced a huge variety of flavours onto the market. Sometimes the name they held meant a different flavour in different countries. The massive increase in demand for
Diet soft drinks in the late 20th Century was met by Pepsi with Diet Pepsi, first introduced in 1964. In some countries, Diet Colas were associated with a principally female demographic. Pepsi Max was introduced as a "No-sugar" drink (it had a few calories) was sold in a black can and aimed its marketing at a male audience. Its sweetener was a combination of aspartame and acesulfame potassium (Ace K) where the bitter aftertaste of each sweetener was cancelled out by the other. (Ace K was not approved for Pepsi drinks in the US so this sweetener combination was not available for Pepsi in the US until 2007. (Pepsi Max in the US in this period had a different formulation (It contained ginseng and higher quantities of caffeine until it was renamed "Pepsi Zero Sugar" in 2016).
Pepsi Max (also known as Pepsi Black and Pepsi No Sugar in some markets) has been a huge success in the UK, Europe and Australia, and is the most popular Pepsi favour in Italy, Norway and Australia.

Coca-Cola responded with Coke Zero, replete with black can in 2007, aimed at the male demographic. When its name was changed to Coke No Sugar in 2017 there was a public backlash but not as great as the New Coke failure.

Answer: Super Bowl LIII was held in Atlanta, Coca-Cola headquarters' location

When Super Bowl LIII was played in Atlanta in 2019, the same city where Coca-Cola has its head office, PepsiCo used its advertising space during the NFL period to poke fun at Coca-Cola. They used slogans such as "Pepsi in Atlanta. How Refreshing", "Hey Atlanta, Thanks For Hosting. We'll Bring The Drinks", and "Look Who's in Town for Super Bowl LIII". Both teams advertised during the Super Bowl itself with Coca-Cola airing the single commercial "A Coke is a Coke" whereas Pepsi ran a series of ads, all with the tagline "Is Pepsi OK?". A win to Pepsi on points was the outcome.

So despite a large product portfolio and massive amounts spent on advertising and establishing a brand as part of a lifestyle, Pepsi was still coming second to Coca-Cola in market share in 2024. There are some parts of the world where Pepsi is number one: India, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and parts of Canada including Quebec, and the eastern and maritime provinces.

Perhaps to be number one, Pepsico needed to introduce Pepsi Perfect globally. This fictional vitamin-enriched type of Pepsi was mentioned in a product placement segment in "Back to the Future Part II" (1989) which was set in 2015. Thirty years after the movie was released, Pepsi released a limited release of 6,500 bottles of Pepsi Perfect which were available for $20.15. They became collector's items and traded for hundreds of dollars on the internet.