In 1903, Bradham moved the bottling of Pepsi-Cola from his drugstore to a rented warehouse. That year, Bradham sold 7,968 gallons of
syrup. The next year, Pepsi was sold in six-ounce bottles, and sales increased to 19,848 gallons. In 1909, automobile race pioneer
Barney Oldfield was the first celebrity to endorse Pepsi-Cola, describing it as "A bully drink...refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race." The advertising theme "Delicious and Healthful" was then used over the next two decades.
[4] In 1926, Pepsi received its first logo redesign since the original design of 1905. In 1929, the logo was changed again.
chemists reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.
1940s advertisement specifically targeting African Americans, A young
Ron Brown is the boy reaching for a bottle
Walter Mack was named the new President of Pepsi-Cola and guided the company through the 1940s. Mack, who supported
progressive causes, noticed that the company's strategy of using advertising for a general audience either ignored
African Americans or used ethnic stereotypes in portraying blacks. He realized African Americans were an untapped
niche market and that Pepsi stood to gain
market share by targeting its advertising directly towards them.
[8] To this end, he hired
Hennan Smith, an advertising executive "from the Negro newspaper field"
[9] to lead an all-black sales team, which had to be cut due to the onset of
World War II.
Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of blacks around the country to promote Pepsi.
Racial segregation and
Jim Crow laws were still in place throughout much of the U.S.; Boyd's team faced a great deal of discrimination as a result,
[9] from insults by Pepsi co-workers to threats by the
Ku Klux Klan.
[10] On the other hand, it was able to use
racism as a selling point, attacking Coke's reluctance to hire blacks and support by the chairman of Coke for segregationist
Governor of Georgia Herman Talmadge.
[8] As a result, Pepsi's market share as compared to Coke's shot up dramatically. After the sales team visited Chicago, Pepsi's share in the city overtook that of Coke for the first time.
[8]
This focus on the market for black people caused some consternation within the company and among its affiliates. It did not want to seem focused on black customers for fear
white customers would be pushed away.
[8] In a meeting at the
Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Mack tried to assuage the 500
bottlers in attendance by pandering to them, saying: "We don't want it to become known as a nigger drink."
[11] After Mack left the company in 1950, support for the black sales team faded and it was cut.
Pepsi logo (1973–1998) In 1987, the font was modified slightly to a more rounded version which was used until 1998.
[12] This logo is now used for
Pepsi Throwback
Pepsi logo (2003–2008).
Pepsi Wild Cherrycontinued to use this design through March 2010.
Pepsi ONE continued to use this design until mid-2012. This logo is still in use in India and other international markets. The original version had the Pepsi wording on the top left of the
Pepsi Globe. In 2007, the Pepsi wording was moved to the bottom of the globe.
From the 1930s through the late 1950s, "Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot" was the most commonly used slogan in the days of old radio, classic motion pictures, and later television. Its jingle (conceived in the days when Pepsi cost only five cents) was used in many different forms with different lyrics. With the rise of radio, Pepsi utilized the services of a young, up-and-coming actress named
Polly Bergen to promote products, oftentimes lending her singing talents to the classic "...Hits The Spot" jingle.
Film actress
Joan Crawford, after marrying then Pepsi-Cola President
Alfred N. Steele became a spokesperson for Pepsi, appearing in commercials, television specials and televised
beauty pageants on behalf of the company. Crawford also had images of the soft drink placed prominently in several of her later films. When Steele died in 1959 Crawford was appointed to the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola, a position she held until 1973, although she was not a board member of the larger PepsiCo, created in 1965.
[13]
The
Buffalo Bisons, an
American Hockey League team, were sponsored by Pepsi-Cola in its later years; the team adopted the beverage's red, white and blue color scheme along with a modification of the Pepsi logo (with the word "Buffalo" in place of the Pepsi-Cola wordmark). The Bisons ceased operations in 1970 (making way for the
Buffalo Sabres).
In 1975, Pepsi introduced the
Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign where PepsiCo set up a blind tasting between Pepsi-Cola and rival Coca-Cola. During these blind taste tests the majority of participants picked Pepsi as the better tasting of the two soft drinks. PepsiCo took great advantage of the campaign with
television commercialsreporting the results to the public.
[14]
In 1996, PepsiCo launched the highly successful
Pepsi Stuff marketing strategy. By 2002, the strategy was cited by Promo Magazine as one of 16 "Ageless Wonders" that "helped redefine promotion marketing".
[15]
In 2007, PepsiCo redesigned its cans for the fourteenth time, and for the first time, included more than thirty different backgrounds on each can, introducing a new background every three weeks.
[16] One of its background designs includes a string of repetitive numbers, "73774". This is a numerical expression from a telephone keypad of the word "Pepsi".
In late 2008, Pepsi overhauled its entire brand, simultaneously introducing a new logo and a
minimalist label design. The redesign was comparable to Coca-Cola's earlier simplification of its can and bottle designs. Pepsi also teamed up with YouTube to produce its first daily entertainment show called Poptub. This show deals with pop culture, internet viral videos, and celebrity gossip.
In 2009, "Bring Home the Cup" changed to "Team Up and Bring Home the Cup". The new installment of the campaign asks for team involvement and an advocate to submit content on behalf of their team for the chance to have the
Stanley Cup delivered to the team's hometown by
Mark Messier.
Pepsi also has sponsorship deals in
international cricket teams. The
Pakistan cricket team is one of the teams that the brand sponsors. The team wears the Pepsi logo on the front of their test and ODI test match clothing.
In July 2009, Pepsi started marketing itself as Pecsi in
Argentina in response to its name being mispronounced by 25% of the population and as a way to connect more with all of the population.
[18]
In October 2008, Pepsi announced that it would be redesigning its logo and re-branding many of its products by early 2009. In 2009, Pepsi,
Diet Pepsi and
Pepsi Max began using all lower-case fonts for name brands, and Diet Pepsi Max was re-branded as Pepsi Max. The brand's
blue and red globe trademark became a series of "smiles", with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product until 2010. Pepsi released this logo in U.S. in late 2008, and later it was released in 2009 in
Canada (the first country outside of the United States for Pepsi's new logo), Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Dominican Republic, the Philippines and Australia. In the rest of the world the new logo has been released in 2010. The old logo is still used in several markets internationally, and has been phased out most recently in
France and
Mexico. The UK started to use the new Pepsi logo on cans in an order different from the US can. Starting in mid-2010, all Pepsi variants, regular, diet, and Pepsi Max, have started using only the medium-sized "smile" Pepsi Globe.
Pepsi and Pepsi Max cans and bottles in Australia now carry the localized version of the new Pepsi Logo. The word Pepsi and the logo are in the new style, while the word "Max" is still in the previous style.
Pepsi Wild Cherry finally received the 2008 Pepsi design in March 2010.
In 2011, for New York Fashion Week, Diet Pepsi introduced a "skinny" can that is taller and has been described as a "sassier" version of the traditional can that Pepsi says was made in "celebration of beautiful, confident women". The company's equating of "skinny" and "beautiful" and "confident" is drawing criticism from brand critics, consumers who do not back the "skinny is better" ethos, and the National Eating Disorders Association, which said that it takes offense to the can and the company's "thoughtless and irresponsible" comments. PepsiCo Inc. is a Fashion Week sponsor. This new can was made available to consumers nationwide in March.
[19]
In April 2011, Pepsi announced that customers will be able to buy a complete stranger a soda at a new "social" vending machine, and even record a video that the stranger would see when they pick up the gift.
[20]
In March 2012, Pepsi introduced
Pepsi Next, a cola with half the calories of regular Pepsi.
[21]
In March 2013, Pepsi for the first time in 17 years reshaped its 20-ounce bottle.
[22]
According to Consumer Reports, in the 1970s, the rivalry continued to heat up the market. Pepsi conducted
blind taste tests in stores, in what was called the "
Pepsi Challenge". These tests suggested that more consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi (which is believed to have more
lemon oil, and less
orange oil, and uses
vanillin rather than
vanilla) to Coke. The sales of Pepsi started to climb, and Pepsi kicked off the "Challenge" across the nation. This became known as the "
Cola Wars".
In 1985,
The Coca-Cola Company, amid much publicity, changed its
formula. The theory has been advanced that
New Coke, as the reformulated drink came to be known, was invented specifically in response to the Pepsi Challenge. However, a consumer backlash led to Coca-Cola quickly reintroducing the original formula as Coke "Classic".
According to
Beverage Digest's 2008 report on carbonated soft drinks, PepsiCo's U.S. market share is 30.8 percent, while The Coca-Cola Company's is 42.7 percent.
[23] Coca-Cola outsells Pepsi in most parts of the U.S., notable exceptions being central
Appalachia,
North Dakota, and
Utah. In the city of
Buffalo, New York, Pepsi outsells Coca-Cola by a two-to-one margin.
[24]
Pepsi had long been the drink of Canadian
Francophones and it continues to hold its dominance by relying on local
Québécois celebrities (especially
Claude Meunier, of
La Petite Vie fame) to sell its product.
[26] PepsiCo introduced the Quebec slogan "here, it's Pepsi" (Ici, c'est Pepsi) in response to Coca-Cola ads proclaiming "Around the world, it's Coke" (Partout dans le monde, c'est Coke).
As of 2012, Pepsi is the third most popular carbonated drink in India with a 15% market share, behind
Sprite and
Thums Up. In comparison, Coca Cola is the fourth most popular carbonated drink occupying a mere 8.8% of the Indian market share.
[27] By most accounts, Coca-Cola was India's leading soft drink until 1977 when it left India after a new government ordered The Coca-Cola Company to turn over its secret formula for Coke and dilute its stake in its Indian unit as required by the
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). In 1988, PepsiCo gained entry to India by creating a joint venture with the Punjab government-owned
Punjab Agro Industrial Corporation (PAIC) and
Voltas India Limited. This joint venture marketed and sold Lehar Pepsi until 1991 when the use of foreign brands was allowed; PepsiCo bought out its partners and ended the joint venture in 1994. In 1993, The Coca-Cola Company returned in pursuance of India's
Liberalization policy.
[28]
In Russia, Pepsi initially had a larger market share than Coke but it was undercut once the
Cold War ended. In 1972, PepsiCo company struck a barter agreement with the then government of the
Soviet Union, in which PepsiCo was granted exportation and Western marketing rights to
Stolichnaya vodka in exchange for importation and Soviet marketing of
Pepsi-Cola.
[29][30] This exchange led to Pepsi-Cola being the first foreign product sanctioned for sale in the
U.S.S.R.
[31]
Reminiscent of the way that Coca-Cola became a cultural icon and its global spread spawned words like "
coca colonization", Pepsi-Cola and its relation to the Soviet system turned it into an icon. In the early 1990s, the term "
Pepsi-stroika" began appearing as a pun on "
perestroika", the reform policy of the Soviet Union under
Mikhail Gorbachev. Critics viewed the policy as an attempt to usher in Western products in deals there with the old elites. Pepsi, as one of the first American products in the Soviet Union, became a symbol of that relationship and the Soviet policy.
[32] This was reflected in Russian author Victor Pelevin's book "
Generation P".
In 1989,
Billy Joel mentioned the rivalry between the two companies in the song "
We Didn't Start The Fire". The line "Rock & Roller Cola Wars" refers to Pepsi and Coke's usage of various musicians in advertising campaigns. Coke used
Paula Abdul, while Pepsi used
Michael Jackson. Both companies then competed to get other musicians to advertise its beverages.
In 1992, following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, Coca-Cola was introduced to the Russian market. As it came to be associated with the new system, and Pepsi to the old, Coca-Cola rapidly captured a significant market share that might otherwise have required years to achieve. By July 2005, Coca-Cola enjoyed a market share of 19.4 percent, followed by Pepsi with 13 percent.
[33]
Pepsi did not sell soft drinks in Israel until 1991. Many Israelis and some American Jewish organizations attributed Pepsi's previous reluctance to do battle to the Arab boycott. Pepsi, which has a large and lucrative business in the Arab world, denied that, saying that economic, rather than political, reasons kept it out of Israel.
[34]
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