Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Sodas That Sucked From The Beginning

As I've said before, usually when a new soda is introduced, it has a period of time when people will like it. Then, as time goes on, they'll switch back to their favorites. You'll try out the newest Orange soda, but eventually you'll return to Sunkist, while the newest twist on the Coke franchise will bring you back to the original and Citra will forever live in the shadow of Sunkist.

But sometimes there will be a soda (like OK Soda) that basically sucks to high heaven almost immediately. You may not know it immediately, but in a few weeks you'll actually find yourself unable to finish a bottle of the stuff.

One such soda is Pepsi Blue Fusion. Placed into stores as an attempt to expand the market for Pepsi, it failed miserably. This was one of the few sodas I've tried that I was unable to finish off a bottle of.

Dr Pepper Red Fusion is another soda like this. Almost a carbon copy of OK Soda (even down to the translucent appearance of the soda itself), my reaction to it was almost the same: Like, followed by a slow development of dislike. I never got to where I couldn't finish a bottle, but then it's not like I found free samples being given away by hapless students hoping to earn $7/hr giving out bubbly water. Another version of this soda is Dr Pepper Cherry Vanilla Soda, which differs in the liquid being opaque.

So, what causes a soda to suck almost immediately? Simple: have it succeed in taste tests that focuses on immediate impressions to the point of ignoring the "drink this case" test, then market it nationwide on the bases of such a flawed testing.

Surely there must be a reason everyone uses such a flawed form of testing, right? More on that tomorrow, and what finally set things right.

1 comment:

Galley said...

Pepsi Blue was the greatest beverage ever created.