New Coke: How people reacted to the beverage in 1985

In 1985, New Coke was unveiled. Now in 2019, it's coming back in honor of the Netflix show "Stranger Things" season 3 release.

[Lotmeister]

Coke did NOT pull "New Coke" from the shelves in 1985. Rather they brought the original Coke back as Coca-Cola Classic and sold them both side-by-side, which was what they should have done in the first place. They didn't like that idea, however, because they feared that it would allow Pepsi to win the mantle of the top-selling cola, even though "New Coke" and Coke Classic together would still have more sales than Pepsi overall. "New Coke" continued to be sold under the names Coke and Coke II until it finally went out of production in 2002. I remember drinking it in high school in the early '90s because it was usually cheaper than Coke Classic at convenience stores.

[avalongmail]

Finally, people have been asking for them to do this for awhile now. It was not as bad as the media would have you believe, it constantly won in taste tests as well, perhaps the whole thing was probably a marketing ploy?

[Justin-Hill-]

They knew New Coke was in trouble when comparisons were being made to the Ford Edsel. The people may have liked New Coke for the first few days, but they eventually got sick of drinking it and wanted the classic formula back.

[Justin-Hill-]

Even McDonald's got in on the New Coke action at the time, so people could try the new soda when ordering their Big Mac, McDLT or Quarter Pounder with Cheese value meals.

[JxT]

i liked it better than the original it was sweeter like a fountain coke

[chucksucks]

I think COKE might have forgot that even if more people liked PEPSI that doesn't mean everyone liked it. The minority who preferred COKE to PEPSI bought coke because they liked it more than pepsi and when they made NEW COKE to taste like pepsi they lost their main customers that bought it simply because they preferred coke to pepsi. I hope that made sense.