Pepsi
History
Pepsi
was first made in New Bern, North Carolina, in the early 1890s, by
pharmacist Caleb Bradham and was originally called "Brad's drink".
It was made of carbonated water, sugar, vanilla, rare oils, pepsin
and cola nuts. As Pepsi was initially intended to cure stomach pains,
Bradham coined the name Pepsi from the condition dyspepsia. The name
was trademarked on June 16, 1903.
Caleb
Bradham, like many pharmacists at the turn of the century, had a soda
fountain in his drugstore, where he served his customers refreshing
drinks that he created himself. This is where Pepsi was first served.
After
seventeen years of success Caleb Bradham lost Pepsi Cola. Believing
that sugar prices would rise he gambled on the stock market. Sugar
prices fell and Pepsi Cola went bankrupt in 1923.
In
1931, Pepsi Cola was bought by the Loft Candy Company Loft president,
Charles G. Guth, who reformulated the popular soft drink.
In
1940, history was made when the first advertising jingle was broadcast
nationally. The jingle was "Nickel Nickel" an advertisement
for Pepsi Cola that referred to the price of Pepsi. "Nickel Nickel"
became a hit record and was recorded in 55 languages.
It
first achieved success by selling its drink in recycled beer
bottles, which allowed it to sell larger bottles for lower
cost than Coke. Pepsi thus became viewed as the soft drink
of the lower classes. In the United States, Pepsi was viewed
as the drink of blacks and in Canada it was viewed as the
drink for the Quebecois, the francophones.
In
the 1950s Pepsi poured great resources into trying to improve its
image. It bought many televison ads and began its long tradition of
employing celebrities to sell its product. It grew and became a serious
rival of the Coca-Cola corporation,
but was still firmly in second place.
In
the 1960s, Pepsi originated the marketing strategy known as "The
Pepsi Generation". This strategy was a constant repetitious advertising
of Pepsi aimed at young people. It worked under the assumption that
there are new consumers coming of age every day and if one stops marketing
to the newest consumers, one will have a shrinking base of established
consumers of one's product. With the aging of the baby boomer generation,
the advertising of Pepsi changed into the drink that keeps your youth.
In
1964, Diet Pepsi was introduced.
In
the early 1980s, Pepsi began a series of advertisements called
the "Pepsi Challenge", in which it directly compared
its product to that of Coca-Cola, showing that people preferred
their product over the competitor's (and Coca-Cola's own research
showed similar results). Coca-Cola, at that time, was suffering
reduced sales, and made a mistake of its own in changing the
formula for its product - the new formula to be called New
Coke - possibly in response to the Pepsi Challenge. This period
of fierce competition between the two companies became known
as the cola wars.
In
1984, then pop phenom Michael Jackson signed a multi million-dollar
endorsement deal which was also a cross-promotion of his and his brothers'
"Victory" tour, which Pepsi sponsored. Two commercial spots
were aired featuring the Jacksons dancing with a group of neighborhood
kids, including a young Alfonso Ribiero, in a concert setting.
The
year 1989 saw the rise of the "Madonna Controversy."
Pepsi reportedly paid Madonna $5 million for a world-wide
promotional campaign tied to her song "Like A Prayer".
Pepsi however did not see her video for the song until after
the campaign began and promptly pulled the Madonna Pepsi
commericals due to her use of burning crosses and other
controversial images in her video clip.
1998
became a year of introduction for the GeneratioNEXT campaign which
pitched a futuristic view of the company to youth. Racer Jeff Gordon
was used as a symbol for fast, young, and powerful. Pepsi is often
the most common drink at sports events, such as Major League Baseball,
as well as large, arena-sized concerts. During the fall of 1998, Pepsi
introduced Pepsi ONE, followed by an ambitious advertising campaign
with the main slogan of "just one calorie." The cola introduced
the use of Sunett (Acesulfame potassium) and aspartame to attain one
calorie.
The
company teamed up with George Lucas's reintroduction of Star
Wars to the big screen during the summer of 1999. Twenty-four
characters from the Star Wars series were introduced as artwork on
the cans over the summer, creating an emphasis for a collectible set.
This created a huge market saturation for awareness of the movie as
momentum built up. Its current (as of 2004) slogan is "Ask for
more." Pepsi has also changed the labels on all Pepsis sold in
Texas (where it is the third most popular soft drink, behind Dr
Pepper), renaming the drink "Pepsi Sí," in a
move hoping to attract a larger Latino demographic (which largely
drinks Coke), in aims that they might "say yes to Pepsi."
Pepsi
Company information