Information about Pepsi

Pepsi-Cola
Type	Cola
Manufacturer	PepsiCo.
Country of origin	United States
Introduced	1902
Related products	Coca-Cola RC Cola

Pepsi Cola is a non-alcoholic carbonated beverage produced and manufactured by PepsiCo. It is sold in stores, restaurants and from vending machines. The drink was first made in the 1890s by pharmacist Caleb Bradham in New Bern North Carolina. The brand was trademarked on June 16, 1903. There have been many Pepsi variants produced over the years, including Diet Pepsi, Crystal Pepsi, Pepsi Max, Pepsi Samba, Pepsi Blue, Pepsi Gold, Pepsi Holiday Spice, Pepsi Jazz, Pepsi Next (available in Japan and South Korea), Pepsi Ice Cucumber (available in Japan as of June 12, 2007).

History

Rise in popularity

During The Great Depression, Pepsi gained popularity following the introduction in 1934 of a 12-ounce bottle. Initially priced at 10 cents, sales were slow, but when the price was slashed to 5 cents, sales went through the roof. With twelve ounces a bottle instead of the six ounces Coca-Cola sold, Pepsi turned the price difference to its advantage with a slick radio advertising campaign, featuring the "Pepsi cola hits the spot / Twelve full ounces, that's a lot / Twice as much for a nickel, too / Pepsi-Cola is the drink for you,", encouraging price-watching consumers to switch to Pepsi, while obliquely referring to the Coca-Cola standard of six ounces a bottle for the price of five cents (a nickel), instead of the twelve ounces Pepsi sold at the same price. Coming at a time of economic crisis, the campaign succeeded in boosting Pepsi's status. From 1936 to 1938, Pepsi Cola's profits doubled.^[1]

Pepsi's success under Guth came while the Loft Candy business was faltering. Since he had initially used Loft's finances and facilities to establish the new Pepsi success, the near-bankrupt Loft Company sued Guth for possession of the Pepsi Cola company. A long legal battle then ensued, with Guth losing. Loft now owned Pepsi, and the two companies did a merger, then immediately spun the Loft company off.

Niche marketing

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.^[2] To this end, he hired Hennan Smith, an advertising executive "from the Negro newspaper field"^[3] to lead an all-black sales team, which had to be cut due to the onset of World War II. In 1947, Mack resumed his efforts, hiring Edward F. Boyd to lead a twelve-man team. They came up with advertising portraying black Americans in a positive light, such as one with a smiling mother holding a six pack of Pepsi while her son (a young Ron Brown, who grew up to be Secretary of Commerce^[4]) reaches up for one. Another ad campaign, titled "Leaders in Their Fields", profiled twenty prominent African Americans such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche and photographer Gordon Parks.

Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of African Americans around the country to promote Pepsi. Racial segregation and Jim Crow laws were still in place throughout much of the U.S., so Boyd's team faced a great deal of discrimination as a result,^[3] from insults by Pepsi co-workers to threats by Ku Klux Klan.^[4] On the other hand, they were able to use racism as a selling point, attacking Coke's reluctance to hire blacks and support by the chairman of Coke to segregationist Governor of Georgia Herman Talmadge.^[2] 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.^[2]

This focus on the African American market caused some consternation within the company and among its affiliates. They did not want to seem focused on black customers for fear whites would be pushed away.^[2] 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 the nigger drink."^[5] After Mack left the company in 1950, support for the black sales team faded and it was cut.

Marketing

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 commercials reporting the test results to the public.^[6].

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."^[7]

In 2007, PepsiCo announced that Pepsi's cans would be redesigned again.^[8]

Celebrity endorsers

Main article: Pepsi spokespersons

Like Coca-Cola, Pepsi and its associated beverages have had various celebrity endorsers and continue to use them. Joan Crawford married Al Steele who was director of the company, she filled Al's place on the board of directors after he died.

Slogans

• 1939: "Twice as Much for a Nickel"
• 1950: "More Bounce to the Ounce"
• 1958: "Be Sociable, Have a Pepsi"
• 1961: "Now It's Pepsi for Those Who Think Young"
• 1963: "Come Alive, You're in the Pepsi Generation".
• 1967: "(Taste that beats the others cold) Pepsi Pours It On".
• 1969: "You've Got a Lot to Live, Pepsi's Got a Lot to Give".
• 1973: "Join the Pepsi people (feeling free)".
• 1975: "Have a Pepsi day".
• 1979: "Catch that Pepsi spirit". David Lucas composer
• 1981: "Pepsi's got your taste for life".
• 1984: "The Choice of a New Generation".
• 1986: "We've Got The Taste" (Commercial with Tina Turner)
• 1991: "Gotta Have It."/"Chill Out"
• 1995: "Nothing Else is a Pepsi".
• 1997: "GeneratioNext".
• 1999: "Ask for More"/"The Joy of Pepsi-Cola".
• 2003: "It's the Cola"/"Dare for More".
• 2005: "Wild Thing"/"Ask For More" (With Jennifer Lopez & Beyoncé Knowles)
• 2007: "More Happy"/"Taste the one that's forever young".

Types of Pepsi

See also: List of Pepsi types

There are many types of Pepsi-Cola all differing in taste, price and appearance. Diet Pepsi is one of the most popular variations of the drink, containing no sugar and zero calories. Other popular low calorie variations of the drink include Pepsi Max, Pepsi ONE, Caffeine-Free Pepsi and Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi. In Japan there is Pepsi Next, which is believed to be the equivalent of Pepsi MAX.

PepsiCo has marketed many different fruit flavors of the drink including: Wild Cherry Pepsi (1988), Diet Wild Cherry Pepsi (2005), Pepsi Lime (2005) and Diet Pepsi Lime (2005) and Pepsi Jazz diet cola with three flavors, Caramel Cream (2007), Strawberries & Cream (2006) and Black Cherry French Vanilla (2006). Pepsi Jazz was invented by Schwab Amin as part of a customer "What's Yo' Flava?" contest in 2006. PepsiCo also rivaled Coca-Cola's lemon-flavored products with Pepsi Twist. Pepsi Twist has been successfully marketed in Brazil (with lime instead of lemon), where a limited-edition version is also sold, the Pepsi Twistão, with an even stronger lime flavor. Pepsi A-ha, with a lemon flavor, was launched in India in 2002 but was not successful. Another type, Pepsi Samba, was released in Australia in the 3rd Quarter of 2005; it is Pepsi with a tropical taste of tamarind and mango.

PepsiCo has introduced many variant versions of Pepsi over the years that differ from the original version in either flavor, appearance or both. Crystal Pepsi, a clear cola free of caffeine, sodium and preservatives, was introduced in 1992 and phased out the following year. Similarly, the blue-colored berry cola Pepsi Blue was introduced in mid-2002 to a mixed response. PepsiCo withdrew it from the market in 2004. In 2006, Pepsi Gold was released.

PepsiCo has introduced coffee-flavored variations of the drink. In 2005, Pepsi Cappuccino was released in Romania and Bulgaria with another coffee-flavored cola called Pepsi Tarik in Malaysia and Pepsi Cafechino in India. In late 2005/early 2006 in the UK PepsiCo released Pepsi Max Cino, a cappuccino variant of its popular Pepsi Max beverage.

Many types of the drink have only been produced or sold for a limited time, such as Pepsi Holiday Spice, a spicy Christmas seasonal finish of ginger and cinnamon. Pepsi X is another variation which contains more caffeine than regular Pepsi-Cola and in addition also contains taurine and guaranine. It is similar to other energy drinks such as Red Bull.

PepsiCo markets Pepsi ONE in the US in place of Pepsi X (sold only outside the US and not currently available for import), as both are sweetened with SPLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, and Pepsi ONE contains 4.6mg of caffeine per ounce without the added taurine and guaranine (Pepsi X has 2.5mg of caffeine and regular Pepsi has 3.13mg per ounce).

Criticisms

See also: PepsiCo - Criticisms

Pepsi was banned from import in India in 1970 for having refused to release the list of its ingredients. In 1993, the ban was lifted, with Pepsi arriving on the market shortly afterwards. One study led by the Center for Science and the Environment (CSE), an independent laboratory in New Delhi, found that the soft drinks contained residues of dangerous pesticides, with one dose 36 times greater than the European standard for Pepsi and 30 times greater for Coca-Cola . However, this was the European standard for water, not for other drinks. The presence of these products could provoke cancers, negatively affect the nervous and immune systems, and cause birth defects. No law bans the presence of pesticides in drinks in India. In 2003 and again in 2006,^[9] the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a non-governmental organization in New Delhi, found that soda drinks produced by manufacturers in India, including both Pepsi and Coca-Cola, had dangerously high levels of pesticides in their drinks. Both PepsiCo and The Coca-Cola Company maintain that their drinks are safe for consumption and have published newspaper advertisements that say pesticide levels in their products are less than those in other foods such as tea, fruit and dairy products.^[10] In the Indian state of Kerala, sale and production of Pepsi-Cola, along with other soft drinks, has been banned.^[11] Five other Indian states have announced partial bans on the drinks in schools, colleges and hospitals.^[12] On September 22, 2006, the High Court in Kerala overturned the Kerala ban ruling that only the federal government can ban food products.^[13]

Iran state television broadcasted anti-Pepsi propaganda, saying that the PEPSI letters stood for Pay Each Penny Save Israel.^[14] PepsiCo has a bottling plant in Iran.^[15]

Long-term health effects

Some nutritionists assert that the phosphoric acid component of Pepsi-Cola, and other similar soft drinks, may be deleterious to bone health in both men and women, with some studies finding the effects to be more notably pronounced in female subjects. See phosphoric acid in food.

Pepsi and other similar products contain large amounts of sugar. Excessive sugar intake is a contributing factor in the development of certain types of diabetes. Sugar is also a leading contributor to tooth decay. The vast amounts of sugar found in Pepsi products has also been linked to erectile dysfunction as well as a decrease in penis size. The carbonation present in pepsi as well as most soft drinks inhibits some calcium intake and, in extremely rare cases, can lead to osteoporosis.

In addition, both 'diet' and non-diet variants are highly acidic, which is a cause of degradation of tooth enamel, making decay due to subsequent sugar intake more likely. This is particularly exacerbated when a drink is sipped at frequent intervals throughout the day.

Rivalry with Coca-Cola

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, 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.

In 1985, The Coca-Cola Company, amid much publicity, changed its formula. Some authorities believe 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 introducing a modified version of the original formula (removing the expensive Haitian lime oil and changing the sweetener to corn syrup) as Coke "Classic".

Overall, Coca-Cola continues to outsell Pepsi in almost all areas of the world. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan (Pepsi has been a dominant sponsor of the Pakistan cricket team since the 1990s), the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Prince Edward Island and the U.S. states of Michigan and South Carolina are the exceptions.^[16]

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.^[17] In 2005, The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo together held 95% market share of soft-drink sales in India. Coca-Cola India's market share was 60.8%.^[18]

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.^[19] "Pepsi" eventually became an offensive nickname for Francophones viewed as a lower class by Anglophones in the middle of the 20th century. The term is now used as an historical reference to French-English linguistic animosity (During the partitionist debate surrounding the 1995 referendum, a pundit wrote, "And a wall will be erected along St-Laurent street [the traditional divide between French and English in Montréal] because some people were throwing Coke bottles one way and Pepsi bottles the other way").

Comedian Dave Chappelle starred in ads for both Coca-Cola and Pepsi, an act which drew controversy. When referring to it in his show, Chappelle said, "I can't even taste the difference: all I know is Pepsi's paying more right now, so it tastes better."

In the U.S., Pepsi's total market share was about 31.7 percent in 2004, while Coke's was about 43.1 percent.^[20]

In Russia, Pepsi once had a larger market share than Coca-Cola. However, Pepsi's dominance in Russia was undercut as 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. ^{[21] [22]} This exchange led to Pepsi-Cola being the first foreign product sanctioned for sale in the U.S.S.R.. ^[23] When the Soviet Union fell apart, Pepsi was associated with the old Soviet system, and Coca Cola, just newly introduced to the Russian market in 1992, was associated with the new system. Thus, Coca-Cola rapidly captured a significant market share away from Pepsi that might otherwise have needed years to build up. By July 2005, Coca-Cola enjoyed a market share of 19.4 percent, followed by Pepsi with 13 percent.^[24]

In the same way that Coca Cola has become a cultural icon and its global spread has spawned words like "coca colonization", Pepsi Cola and its relation to Russia has also 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 a lot of fizz without substance and 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 the relationship and the Soviet policy.^[25]

Ingredients

	Amount per 100mL
Energy	196.5 kJ
Fat	0 g
Sodium	0.98 mg
Carbohydrates	11.74 g
Sugar	11.04 g
Protein	0 g
Caffeine	10 mg

Pepsi-Cola contains basic ingredients found in most other similar drinks including carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, colorings, phosphoric acid, caffeine, citric acid and natural flavors. The caffeine-free Pepsi-Cola contains the same ingredients minus the caffeine.

The original Pepsi-Cola recipe was actually available from documents filed with the court at the time that the Pepsi-Cola Company went bankrupt in 1929. Note that the original formulation contained neither cola nor caffeine.

Competitors

• Coca-Cola
• R.C. Cola

See also

• Pepsico
• Pepsi Stuff
• Soft drink
• Cola wars
• Coca-Cola (drink)
• The Coca-Cola Company (Competitor)
• Pepsiman (Mascot for the Japanese division of Pepsi)
• List of Pepsi types

Notes

References

• Beverage World Magazine, January 1998, "Celebrating a Century of Refreshment: Pepsi - The First 100 Years"
• Stoddard, Bob. Pepsi Cola - 100 Years (1997), General Publishing Group, Los Angeles, CA, USA
• "History & Milestones" (1996), Pepsi packet
• Louis, J.C. & Yazijian, Harvey Z. "The Cola Wars" (1980), Everest House, Publishers, New York, NY, USA

External links

• The origin of Company Pepsi
• Pepsi FAQ
• Pepsi World
• Pepsi Gallery - Pepsi Promotional site
• Pepsi Americas
• 'Coke, Pepsi losing the fizz'
• 1987 Audio Interview with John Sculley by Don Swaim of CBS Radio - RealAudio
• The Annual Pepsi Independence Day Celebration (Tri-Cities, TN.)
• The Pepsi Max Cappuccino Wire, a fan site to Pepsi Max Cappuccino.
• The Original Pepsi-Cola Recipe
• Nutrition facts
• (South African 1977 Radio Commercial)
• 1939 Radio Commercial (Twice as Much for a Nickel)
• Pepsi Commercials Online

•  • [ e] Varieties of Pepsi
Non-Diet Colas	Pepsi • Crystal Pepsi • Pepsi Blue • Pepsi Free • Pepsi Ice Cucumber • Pepsi Twist • Pepsi Max
Diet Colas	Diet Pepsi • Diet Pepsi Jazz • Diet Pepsi Max • Pepsi ONE
Coffee related Colas	Pepsi Kaffe

•  • [ e] Brands of Cola

Afri-Cola • Amrat Cola • Apotekarnes Cola • Barr Cola • Big 8 Cola • Big Cola • Big K Cola • Boylan Cane Cola • Breizh Cola • Bubba Cola • Campa Cola • Celeste Cola • Chek Cola • Chero-Cola • China Cola • Classic Cola • Club Cola • Coca-Cola • Cola Turka • Cole Cold • Corsica Cola • Count Cola • Cricket Cola • Cuba Cola • Diet Rite Cola • Double Cola • Evoca Cola • El Ch-Cola • Export cola • Fada Cola • Faygo Cola • Frescolita • Fruti Kola • Fuji-Cola • Future Cola • Inca Kola • Jolly Cola • Jolt Cola • Jones • Kiri • Kitty Kola • Kofola • Kola Inglesa • Kola Real • Kola Romn • Kristal Kola • LA Ice Cola • Like Cola • Mecca-Cola • Mr. Cola • OK Cola • OpenCola • Parsi Cola • Pepsi • Per Cola • Polo-Cockta • Premium-cola • Qibla Cola • Red Kola • Reyna Kola • R.C. Cola • Rola Cola • Sam's Cola • Schin Cola • Schweppes Cola • Schwipp Schwapp • Shasta Cola • Sinalco • TaB • Thums Up • tuKola • Virgin Cola • Vita-Cola • Viva Cola • White Rock Cola • Whole Earth Cola • XL Cola • Zam Zam Cola • Zelal Cola