Coca-Cola
has released a new flavor.
It’s
called Coca-Cola Spice.
And
the jokes have begun.
Not
overwhelming jokes. In fact, there’s a good chance my even mentioning
the existence of jokes catches you by surprise. Of course, there’s
a really good chance that my mentioning the release of a new flavor
is even more surprising. The advertising and news coverage has
been there, but the advertising and news coverage has been very
subtle. It’s almost—almost, an untrained and not included in the
marketing team debates opinion might wonder—as if Coca-Cola is
expecting a roar of public response to rise up and create an unforeseen
tidal wave of excitement.
What
I find peculiar though is the surprise and the jokes about it
being Coca-Cola Spice. As in, the company involved.
Hey,
look, I agree. Coca-Cola is the brand recognized as releasing
one of the biggest flops in in beverage history with New Coke.
Even if, as conspiracy theories offer, the effort was just a massive
campaign to get attention for the soda before re-releasing Coke
Original, the 1985 event is remembered as one of the dumbest ideas
ever acted upon.
Coca-Cola
Spiced? Why? What could they possibly be thinking?
That’s
where I think the merry jokesters have it wrong.
Information
is the most valuable element in any set of plans. Coca-Cola has
the resources to assemble some of the most amazing bits of information
you could imagine before acting.
Many,
many years ago, I was talking to a friend that worked in a college
admissions office. She joked with me about how decades upon decades
of numbers had provided them with an amazing ability. They knew
pretty much exactly how many applications they needed to accept
in order to fill the openings for the incoming class, from overall
students in total to the number of new students that would want
on-campus housing. And I mean, not approximately 3,200 exact and
not rounding off exact. I mean using numbers that end in 3s and
7s and 9s exact.
Think
of it this way, the school’s information, enhanced by exchanging
some thoughts and details with other schools, strengthened with
a background of efforts from the school and the industry, and
finished off with years of experience for multiple quality members
of the staff, meant they could say something like this:
We
have room for 2,916 new students next year. To get that, we’ll
need to accept 6,480 students, since 45% of accepted incoming
students accept our acceptance invitation and 55% turn it down
for an acceptances at a different school they prefer or any
of a number of other reasons. Of that 2,916, one-third will
request a dorm room. That’s 972, and we’re going to have 986
openings.
I
made up the numbers in that, but the general idea is sound. My
friend explained that after dozens of years of school history,
they knew how many students routinely accepted their invite. They
could break down the numbers to show how many would pass on the
invite because of another school they wish to attend, how many
would turn them down based on cost, and so on for all sorts of
other possible reasons. They had figures they could use to determine
how many rooms would be requested, as well as how many rooms they
would have because students graduated, moved off campus, didn’t
return and whatever else might become involved.
The
school admissions office has information. Lots of information.
See
that Coca-Cola Freestyle machine over there? Estimates are that
Coca-Cola has about 52,000 of them in service right now. Fifty…
two… thousand.
That’s
fifty-two thousand collection points of actual customer activity.
Data. Research. Information.
I
am not saying that Coca-Cola Spiced has a specially designed blend
enhanced with raspberry flavors as a result of Coca-Cola Freestyle
usage. I am saying it would be awfully naïve to assume that
none of the Freestyle information was considered at all.
In
fact, funny side story I think is worthy of note. Back around
September of 2023, roughly six months before the debut of that
hint of raspberry is in there Coca-Cola Spiced, there were corners
of the online world gathering, uniting and organizing, to try
and figure out why they observed raspberry seemed suddenly unavailable
and had been removed from Coca-Cola Freestyle machines.
I
could accept coincidence. Thought it definitely does seem a bit
strange and beyond coincidental that Coca-Cola would drop a flavor
months before it was a central element in a new product because
it wasn’t selling. And Coca-Cola says the flavor was still available
to order for the units.
Am
I suggesting they knew raspberry was popular, made it harder to
find as they neared releasing a beverage featuring raspberry,
and thought a consumer-driven attention-earning action might rise
to add to their release? I guess I might be. Could be a coincidence.
However, companies tend to not spend millions upon millions upon
millions on coincidences, especially when there’s a variety of
ways to collect consumer preference data. (You know, like 52,000
ways.)
I
suppose there’s a natural question to ask in concluding this essay.
Have I tried it? Have I purchased and tasted a Coca-Cola Spiced?
And the answer is, yes. I have.
Coca-Cola
Spiced is pretty good. It definitely has the hints of raspberry
promised. And the spice isn’t heat, but rather a different, pleasant,
not fully identifiable closer that delivers the finish for an
enjoyable beverage. I would happily have another down the road,
though it wouldn’t change my mind about preferring a regular Coke
or a Cherry Coke if I’m looking for a soda.
(Funny
thing is, I’m guessing that in conference rooms around Coca-Cola
offices, management already has the numbers available so that
my preferences come as no surprise to them.)