It’s not often Coca Cola gets a marketing decision totally wrong. But it appears that was the case with Coke Spiced, released earlier this year. Good idea – bad execution. Now, Coke has admitted failure, and Coke Spiced is being pulled from the shelves…
It was touted as a brave new take on cola when it was slashed out across the can racks this past February. And we all assumed Coke has made the decision to launch Coke Spiced after due con-sideration and diligent market research. But Coke Spiced was ‘developed’ in just 7 weeks…
Not such a great move, after all?
But it appears the Cola giant somehow managed to botch its plan to cross over to the ‘spice’ flavour realm. So confident in the new flavour were they that they immediately promised it would be a per-manent member of the North American Coke family.
What happened?
Contrary to Coke’s expectations, Spiced never performed as hoped.
“We’re always looking at what our consumers like and adjusting our range of products, the company said, in a statement. “As part of this strategy, we’re planning to phase out Coca-Cola Spiced to intro-duce an exciting new flavor in 2025.”
Marketing experts say there are some pretty good – and obvious – reasons for its failure.
Confusing signals
First, reviewers said the flavour didn’t strike them as particularly new – more like an ‘amped-up’ blend of the usual Coke flavouring ingredients. And rather than spice, others observed, the pre-dominant taste was apparently ‘raspberry’.
Coke said raspberry had popped up more than 5 million times in 2022, in data culled from it’s Free-style drink machines, spotted across North America. So, it thought a spice-berry combo would be a ‘natural’.
Also, market researchers now say the lack of actual spice in a product prominently labelled ‘Spiced’ may have been a disappointment and a turnoff or fans. Especially the Millennial-and-younger folks Coke said it was targeting.
What’s next?
“Consumers are looking for more bold flavors and more complex flavor profiles,” Cha previously told CNN. “That’s a trend we started to see in food but also in beverage[s], and we thought that was a unique space for us to play in.”
Indications are, they’re still planning to play in that sandbox. The new ‘replacement’ permanent-roster Cola variant promised for 2025 might just feature a ‘spiced’ approach again. Some real spice – perhaps ginger, allspice, nutmeg or sweet paprika – would probably complement Coke’s classic fla-vour profile nicely, in my humble opinion.
But not real, hot spices, such as chilis or Spanish paprika. As popular with the kids as Sriracha and other globally homes spice blends are, real spicy heat and carbonation just don’t mix. The burn of hot spices is one of the sought-after factors in classic spicy applications.
But it’s amplified dramatically by the assault of CO2 bubbles on the tongue and mucous membranes of the mouth and esophagus. The result is harsh and extreme – not even a ‘flavour’ at all. ‘Fizzy + spicy’ has long been known as a cardinal no-no among experienced cooks.
My take
I hope Coke has better luck with it’s new ‘bold-flavoured’ product. I believe the Coke insiders who spotted the emerging demand for ‘bold’ flavours got that part right.
But this time, let’s hope they choose a sensible flavour focus and a properly coordinated name. AND perform the usual due diligence and market testing before springing a new permanent flavour on the world again…
~ Maggie J.