After a failed attempt to add a coffee-flavored drink to the Coca-Cola portfolio in 2006, the brand has decided to try again and is optimistic about releasing a new coffee-flavored Coke product into the American market, reported CNN .
The original coffee drink that the brand released was called Coca-Cola Blak, which was a coffee-flavored version of its original Coke beverage. However, consumers did not react well to the taste of the drink and the beverage was taken off the market just two years after it was released.
Nancy Quan, the company’s chief technical officer, explained why the drink flopped in the early 2000s.
“That was a trend before its time. I don’t think people were ready to have a coffee portfolio within the Coca-Cola brand.”
However, due to shifting palette preferences and flavor trends, the brand believes that the American public may be ready for a second attempt. Coke has already begun selling the new beverage, called Coca-Cola Plus Coffee, in international markets, including in the countries of Australia, Italy, Spain, Thailand, and Poland, among others.
Coca-Cola Plus Coffee is the original Coke beverage with the addition of coffee, giving the product an additional caffeine jolt and proving to be a huge success in the markets already tested. In fact, the brand is planning on releasing the product into 25 more international markets by the end of the year with the potential of bringing it to the U.S. after that.
POWER! #Cocacolapluscoffee pic.twitter.com/zbWz0z3LaJ
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Javier Meza, Coca-Cola’s global chief marketing officer of sparkling beverages, believes that the coffee drink could prove to be a success in the United States, telling CNN that it’s quite possible that they will launch the drink next year.
Meza added that while the success of a product in other countries does not necessarily indicate that the product will prove successful in the United States, the fact that consumers in international markets were not expecting the coffee-flavored Coke beverage and responded positively to it may bode well for its release in the U.S.
Another reason why the brand believes the re-release of the coffee-flavored soda could become a hit in the U.S. is because it will be packaged differently than the original Blak. While Blak had its own distinct packaging, Coca-Cola Plus Coffee looks similar to the original Coke design and is clearly part of the Coke family.
Meza explains that by launching new beverages under the original Coca-Cola trademark, they are “leveraging the power of the Coca-Cola brand” and maintaining their consumers by offering different variations of the company’s original product.
