In the world of business, there is always going to be rivalries.  One of the most iconic and worldwide known rivalries is the battle between Coca Cola and Pepsi. With Coca Cola’s creation back in the 1880’s and the spark of Pepsi after only a few years, the two now famous brands have been going against each other for the top spot of the soft drink industry for decades. To position themselves above the other, they have employed creative advertising tactics to change the consumer mindset about each other ( such as this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DijFob8vxgI ). Each brand has innovated their products in correspondence with their rivals innovation. Examples would be Vanilla Cola and Pepsi Max. The origin of these two soft drinks came from each other’s products. Pepsi and Coca Cola have not stopped in making sure they do not fall behind in terms of products, market share, etc.

Pepsi True

Recently, Pepsi has unveiled their newest product called Pepsi True, a “green cola” with 40% fewer calories than a regular Pepsi and sweetened using naturally sourced sweetner. Is this a new product that the world has not yet seen? The answer to this question is no. Last year, Coca Cola released its “green cola” ( called Coke Life) and pay attention to this, the product has 36% fewer calories than a regular Coca Cola and sweetened using naturally sourced sweetner. Does this sound familiar? I think so. If you look at a side by side comparison between the two products, even the look and presentation is nearly identical.

Coca Cola Life

The interesting part about these green colas is that when Coca Cola release their version, the community was very divided on the taste of it. There wasn’t even an immediate uproar from the community it was launched in and it for sure didn’t gain world wide popularity (you can tell by the amount of green colas available in Canada and US- none). Even so, Pepsi is still relentless in making sure it does not fall behind to Coca Cola, despite the fact that green colas, so far speaking, has not even been remotely successful. While Pepsi may see that currently green colas are a bust, they may be afraid that future healthy trends will catch on and make green colas the “in” thing in the soft drink industry. Pepsi wants to make sure if such a trend does catch on that they will still be in fighting contention with Coca Cola.

SOURCE:

http://www.businessinsider.com/pepsi-has-launched-a-new-green-cola-pepsi-true-2014-10

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