With the Soft Drinks Industry Levy kicking in at the start
of April 2018 the category is in the limelight. Notwithstanding the fact that
the initiative is a regressive tax (less well-off people pay a higher
proportion of their disposable income on soft drinks); that obesity has been
rising as fast as sugar consumption has been falling in recent years; and that only
3% of calories come from soft drinks anyway, it’s a tax that has delighted anti-sugar campaigners.
Similar sugar exercises have been introduced in various
countries. France took the plunge six
years ago, while Norway has been at it for quite a bit longer - since 1922. The
levy might have its critics, but few will disagree that in terms of the global
clampdown on sugar consumption, the UK is well behind the curve. Each country that
has implemented the sugar tax has been working with different levies under
different sugar thresholds and drinks criteria, making overall success
difficult to assess. However, to date, there’s no evidence of a reduction in
obesity. Mexico introduced a sugary drink tax in 2014 and a 6% decline in sales has since been reported. This equates to just 16 fewer
calories a day, not much when an adult man needs 2,500 calories to maintain a
normal weight. As a result of this lack of clarity, the main soft drink
companies in the UK have responded in different ways:
However, there can be consumer backlash when much-loved
brands reformulate their product. In 2011 Twining’s Earl Grey Tea changed its
recipe, leading consumers to create a forceful social media campaign which
succeeded in bringing back the original. Makers Mark reduced their ABV to 37.5%
in 2013 before quickly backtracking as drinkers resisted.
Most famously, this occurred with Coca Cola, a story that has
been depicted widely including in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink”, and by Thomas
Oliver in his 1986 book “Real Coke, the Real Story”. But most importantly, it
highlights the importance of doing the right type of product testing of new
variants before changing the recipe.
In the early 1970’s Coca Cola dominated the market and Pepsi
was the upstart who decided to focus on product appeal by launching the Pepsi
Challenge. Consisting of around 13,000 blind head-to-head tests of the two
brands, the Challenge was conducted in shopping malls and stores across the US,
with the result that 56% preferred the taste of Pepsi over Coca Cola. Pepsi
then reinforced the findings through TV advertising showing the Pepsi Challenge
in action – you can find lots of examples on YouTube. This mixture of product
testing and marketing worked; in 1972, 18% of soft drink users Americans
exclusively drank Coca Cola, 4% Pepsi. By the early 1980’s Coca Cola was drunk
exclusively by 12%, Pepsi by 11%.
Needless to say, Coca Cola were concerned, and their own
internal tests confirmed that Pepsi was indeed preferred on blind head-to-head
tests. They developed New Coke to counter this and after repeated reformulations
were convinced they had the product which was preferred to Pepsi on the same
tests. Launch took place in 1985 with a huge marketing budget. And there was a
huge public backlash – to say consumers did not like the new variant is putting
it mildly. There were public protests, boycotts and bottles being emptied into
the streets in several cities. After 79
days Coca Cola withdrew the product from the market and relaunched the
original, Coca Cola Classic. It was
called the “biggest marketing own goal of the century”.
The reason this backfired was because Coca Cola did not seem
to appreciate the difference between testing designed to make product claims
(head-to-head sip preference tests) and product testing for liquid development
purposes. Pepsi has a product with an instant taste appeal, one almost purpose-designed
to win a head-to-head blind sip test. They ran the Pepsi Challenge to be able
to make product claims, and Coca Cola perpetuated the problem by designing a
product to then beat Pepsi on the same type of test.
In reality (and unlike taste tests), people drink a whole
can or bottle, sometimes more, and on more extended drinking Coke comes into
its own and the sweeter Pepsi product can be less attractive. This is also true
of beer and spirits brands looking to reduce the ABV – such changes to the taste
can only become apparent after a few glasses. In real life consumers have a
drink and if they like it they will buy it again – they don’t take a sip of two
unknown options and then decide. And finally, they buy the brand not just the
liquid, and in the case of Coca Cola they buy into 100 years of rich imagery
and associations.
The ideal way to product test for recipe changes would
include a Triangle test (to test whether consumers can taste, or ‘spot’, the
difference between the current and new recipe); Monadic taste testing, where
matched samples of regular drinkers taste and rate multiple cans/glasses of the
new and current recipes blind; and a test of the new recipes against the brand
(not blind), so that drinkers are rating the actual taste against their taste
expectations and experience. We have done such testing with some of the nation’s
favourite cider and beer brands, which has given some the confidence to make
the change and others the prior warning they needed, along with guidance on how
to adapt the new variant to further suit consumer taste and perception.
Brands who change their recipe on the basis of a head-to-head
blind sip test results can almost expect a public backlash. The new recipe
hasn’t been tested properly – on extended drinking, monadically, among regular
drinkers who know and love the taste of the brand. Let’s hope this isn’t the
case with Lucozade Energy and Irn Bru.
