Anyone who's watched a football game recently has likely seen ads for "Pepsi Throwback", and their placement and number indicate that real money's being spent on the campaign.
They feature scenes of old football games cut and split-screened with modern ones, and emphasize that "Pepsi Throwback" is available for a limited time and is "Made with Real Sugar".
I know that soft drinks in the US have been pretty much exclusively made with various other sweeteners than "real sugar" for a long time. And I'm far from an expert on drink marketing, but does it strike anyone else (as it did me) that it might not be such a good idea to spend millions to remind everyone their drinks do not normally contain real sugar?
How many people thought to themselves after seeing on of those ads, "Wait, what's it usually made of?"
Ah, I’ll take my Pepsi made of incinerated Chinese newspapers and endanged panda tears over this any day.
It’s made from what everything else in the United States is made from: corn!
I studied abroad in an East Asian country a couple of years ago, where they lack FDA-style regulations and the corn lobby. You can definitely tell the difference between real sugar and substitutes in soft drinks. When I returned to the states, all U.S. soft drinks tasted rather bland.
ChrisH, its common knowledge among many people, but certainly not all, and even reminding those who know didn’t seem like a good idea to me.
some dork, my understanding is that it is not the “corn lobby” but the “sugar lobby” that limits sugar imports, and keeps sugar prices high and prices it out of the soft drink use.
@ Bill Gorman, some dork is right, it is the corn lobby and not the sugar lobby that makes corn syrup cheap so cheap that it’s used in just about every food product you can think of. Check out “King Corn,” the DVD, when you have a chance (it’s very similar to Super Size Me). It’s actually a pretty interesting movie, even if the whole plot is just about corn. Here’s the synopsis via amazon.com:
“Picking up where Super Size Me left off, King Corn examines America’s health woes through the multifaceted lens of one humble grain. Director Aaron Woolf and co-writers Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis offer irrefutable proof that the US is virtually drowning in the stuff. Corn meal, corn starch, hydrologized corn protein, and high fructose corn syrup fuel a multitude of products, from soft drinks to hamburgers. The starchy vegetable grows with ease and government subsidies insure over-abundant production. Woolf documents the 11-month effort of college friends Cheney and Ellis, who trace their ancestry to the same small Iowa town, to raise their own crop. After finding a farmer willing to lend them an acre, they meet with agronomists, historians, and other experts before plowing, seeding, and spraying. Prior to harvesting, the easygoing Yale grads travel to Colorado to compare the grass-fed cattle of yore with today’s corn-fed counterparts; then to New York to explore the links between corn syrup, obesity, and diabetes. With assistance from author Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), a whimsical score, and stop-motion animation–farm toys and corn kernels–Woolf and associates bring biochemistry to vivid life. On a micro level, this genial eye-opener celebrates friends and farmers; on a macro level, King Corn bemoans the subsidies and genetic modifications that have turned a formerly protein-filled product into the fatty “yellow dent no. 2.” Bonus features include a music video, photo gallery, and “The Lost Basement Lectures,” an amusingly fake instructional movie about the aims of agriculture. –Kathleen C. Fennessy”
Yikes! So much for my purported understanding of agricultural commodity politics!
lol
I’m sipping on a Pepsi Throwback right now. It’s lighter, less syrupy.
I’d pay a premium price for it. Wish they’d leave it on the shelves permanently.
But you have a point about the marketing – it would be like NBC’s new fall campaign being “Now with compelling characters and well-written scripts!”
It’s funny you posted this as everytime I see this commercial I have the same reaction.
FYI… Kosher Pepsi and Coke (available pretty much everywhere around Passover time), also uses REAL sugar. It’s basically Throwback Pepsi. That’s the time to stock up on it.
I’m holding out for Coke Throwback. . . the original recipe. You know, the one with actual cocaine in it.
@ hessian: ‘But you have a point about the marketing – it would be like NBC’s new fall campaign being “Now with compelling characters and well-written scripts!”’
And 100% Less Conan! Hee. But seriously, Dominoes Pizza is doing essentially that in their new marketing campaign. I wonder what other companies might try this novelty called truth in advertising.
I’ve traveled all over the world the last 20 years and have noticed a couple of things about sodas. First, Coke is Coke pretty much everywhere – it tastes the same out of a can in Alabama as in South Africa. Fountain Coke has variability but then again, it’s variable in the US (that’s why McDonald’s Coke tastes a bit different and better than elsewhere).
Now, Pepsi, it can be very different depending on where you go. In some countries it’s sweeter, in others a bit more tart. I’ve been to some places where it’s just a bit different tasting than the US, others where I would have guessed it was generic cola or an old Tab or something.
In the US, I generally only drink Pepsi if it’s cans and bottles but tend to prefer fountain Coke in restaurants. Outside the US, I tend to stick with Coke since I know what it will taste like, even though in US the only time I’ll drink a can or bottle of Coke is if Pepsi or good old RC Cola isn’t available.
So there’s my .02 on sodas, written on a site talking about TV. I feel ashamed for having nothing better to do this afternoon than actually writing this up.
Food Inc also covers what has been done to corn, chicken, soybeans, beef and other various things we consider food.
Remember that the whole New Coke – bring back old Coke was nothing more than a way for the bottler to get rid of sugar and give us corn syrup back in 1985 without people protesting about the formula being changed. You’ve had 25 years of corn syrup in your drinks versus that sugar stuff.
Cal, the big difference between Dominoes marketing and Throwback Pepsi, is that Dominoes isn’t making their change temporary.
It’s one thing to say “Our old way was crap, we’ve changed” another to say “Our new, temporary way is great! But our old, not as great way, will be back soon!”
I don’t even think it’s that people don’t KNOW that their soda’s made with chemicals instead of sugar. It’s that people don’t THINK about it until you remind them of it.
Pepsi Throwback has been out for a while. It used to come in dark blue packaging instead of the new “old” design.
I agree with the point you are trying to make that this is terrible marketing. Keep in mind that most people who consume these products aren’t that concerned with their health in the first place so it probably will not make much difference.
It’s not just Pepsi. It’s Dr. Pepper. It’s OceanSpray and Snapple. The only difference is, the changes from High Fructose Corn Syrup to sugar is permanent in OceanSpray and Snapple. But, I have a feeling that the corn industry must be scared right now that people are no longer buying their bullcrap about HFCS.
I doubt that Dominoes is really going to stick with their upgrade. They’ll be back to cardboard and red ketschup. Remember when Chuck E Cheese upgraded their pizzas? That didn’t last long.
Sugared Dr. Pepper is available year round in West Texas.
Wasn’t Chuck upgraded this year… What was wrong with old Chuck?
Corn syrup is cheaper than sugar because sugar is artificially expensive in the US. Corn and sugar growers are both behind the protectionist tariffs that keep cheap sugar imports out. It is however incorrect to claim that corn syrup is cheaper–the competition is more expensive.