The Other 1 % Doctrine

Steven Levitt beat me to the punch on Diet Coke's odd advertising campaign which identifies the product as 99% water and 100% taste. (His take is that given the price of bottled water, the 1% of flavoring, isn't that much of a mark up. My apologies if I got it wrong.)

Anyway, I saw the ad at a bus stop in a large metropolitan city. (Curiously, at their website, other ads, but not the one in question, are on display.) The ad had me scratching my head -- something akin to the meaningless "Mustang Two, Boredom Zero" ads of the 1970s for the restyled Mustangs. This is when I think that Madison Avenue has lost its touch.

Back in the 1980s, Coke re-formulated the product and created the ill-fated New Coke. That was a reaction to poor sales and the product apparently tested well with focus groups. New Coke was an unmitigated disaster and was pulled off the shelves shortly after rolling out. In hindsight, they realized that they had a distribution problem, not a taste problem. In short, there's a history of poor strategic thinking down in Atlanta.

Although bottled water is a big business, water - when it's not packaged -- can still be acquired for free.

I don't care much for soda. But if I was going to pay for soda (or 1% flavoring) why not purchase something cheaper? (They all taste the same for the most part, don't they?) So why advertise the fact that the consumer is paying for 1% of the product.

This may not rival New Coke for stupidity. But it's close. Like 1%.