Sugar. We always knew it was bad for us. But when the Food and Drug Administration announced that americans should eat and drink no more than 50 grams of sugar, lawmakers and consumers started turning against the consumption of sugar. Since then the American Beverage Association has invested millions into fighting laws to tax and label beverages that included sugar and it’s said that major firms like Coca-Cola has been investing money into misleading research. Before sugar, fat was being shed a negative light on. Headlines during the 1980s discussed how butter, oil, and meat were ruining our health influencing grocery stores to change their shelves with low fat alternatives.
Soda companies are taking notice on how influential research can be on their business thus they’re exploring ways to make up for their losses. For example, Pepsi and Coke are using a dual-pronged approach meaning, reframing their products to convince consumers that sweet beverages are okay to drink as well as investing outside of their traditional sweet beverage. In order for soda companies to continue to make profit, they need to provide consumers with evidence that their beverages aren’t as unhealthy as they seem, hence they should cut the calories they include in the drink. One strategy they approached was to decrease their size of their cans and doing this increased sales by 17%. Decreasing the size of the can, made consumers perceive that this meant they included less calories, making them give in to the temptation of a sugary drink.
source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/big-soda-is-fighting-science-on-sugar-2015-11