Coke's Mistakes

I was going to put this into some sort of chronological order, but I've decided I can't be bothered. These are all the posts I've made regarding Dasani in recent weeks in one compact, easy to ignore serving. Enjoy.

Mistake 1: Underestimating the importance of total product honesty

• Flameproof | new | Dasani I hereby crown myself marketing guru. At least I saw what was going to happen... Of course at first, it was just bad PR.
  
• BBC | Soft drink is purified tap water
  
• Evening Standard | Real thing or rip off?
  It was only a matter of time before this particular PR coup blew up in Coke's faces. Glad to know I wasn't the only person to think of Peckham Springs! It'll be interesting to see what they do now. More in this pop up window. This of course is simply a case of not getting people on-side.
  
• PRWeek | Water PRs dodge the Dasani flak Coke maintained that they were going to continue with the product; understandable, they are the second biggest water product in the states. (Interestingly, the first is Aquafina, Pepsi's reverse-osmosis water!)
  

Mistake 2: Not taking the target market's laws into account

• Dasani.fr In fact, Dasani's been discontinued Europe-wide, and will probably remain so.
  
• BBC | Coke recalls controversial water
  
• The Guardian | Things get worse with Coke... and finally, Dasani is taken off the market.
  
• Motley Fool | Coke Drains Dasani March 23, 2004 But fail they did, and the second blow was mortal.
  

Biggest mistake: not communicating the reasons behind changes

This was not Coke's most infamous blunder, of course. Almost 19 years ago (round about the launch of Back to the Future in cinemas) Coke took a bold step and changed the recipe for their flagship product.

It didn't go down very well.

• New Coke versus Old Coke
  
• God, What a Blunder: The New Coke Story
  
• Urban Legends Reference Pages: Cokelore (Knew Coke): "It's inconceivable to us mere mortals that a company of the size and scope of Coca-Cola could make a mistake on the scale of the one it made in 1985" Except those of us who've seen them do it again...
  
• Coca-Cola - Heritage - Cokelore- the real story of New Coke Coke's own take on the situation.