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The Business Stuff, Again

The non-alcoholic beverage industry is undergoing a fundamental change. In the past five years, beverage producers have seen growth of traditional carbonated soft drinks slow, arrest, and then decline. All of the growth is in sports drinks, energy drinks (whatever that means), and water. The producers know it. The industry pundits know it. You and I know it. It's the way of things. It's the perfect time to take a mature product like Diet Mountain Dew and see what you can do to squeeze some more life out of it. It's stagnating, so nothing to lose, right? Just common sense, right?

Except Diet Mountain Dew wasn't stagnating; quite the opposite. In 2005, after two decades essentially unchanged, Diet Mountain Dew performed marvelously. Ten million more cases were sold in the United States in 2005 than in 2004—an increase of 7.9%. Note that this 7.9% Diet Mountain Dew increase came as overall PepsiCo soft drink volume dropped 1.2%, and as nationwide soft drink volume dropped 0.2%. Moreover, in 2005, Diet Mountain Dew became the tenth best-selling soft drink in the United States.

Dear readers, how was this product slated for the comprehensive, disastrous gustatory makeover that is Tuned Up Taste? I speculated on that here, but in the face of these numbers, that piece seems insufficient. It would have been much more sensible for PepsiCo to go after something like Pepsi One, which tastes fine (when it's new) but has other debilitating weaknesses. For one, a freshly-poured glass of Pepsi One fizzes far longer than any other soft drink I've ever encountered. Pour a glass off a new 2-liter, and then go check your email and walk the dog. When you return, you'll discover about 3 oz. of actual beverage in your glass, at which point you have to repeat the entire process again. For another, an open 2-liter of Pepsi One is dead flat in 48 to 72 hours. Drink it quickly, sports fans. For all I know the previous formula of Diet Mountain Dew goes flat that quickly too, but it was never around at my house long enough for me to find out. Plus, the fizz is gone quickly, even pouring off a fresh 2-liter.

So here I sit, a sufficiently compensated yet apparently insufficiently hip consumer, patiently waiting for the gears of big business to turn. And here you sit with me. As I said in The Pace of the Fight, PepsiCo will need at least one round of sales figures in hand before deciding to give us our previous formula Diet Mountain Dew back. With us quiet yet freakishly free-wheeling (when it comes to the previous formula of Diet Dew) consumers on the sideline, I'm confident we'll severely impact that PowerPoint graph in the negative direction.

Bring back your +7.9% and newly-christened #10, PepsiCo!

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