The cola wars made Pepsi and Coke “the world’s best marketers”

La guerre du cola a fait de Pepsi et Coca Cola les meilleurs professionnels du marketing au monde

Pepsi et Coca-Cola, rois du marketing.

Pepsi ou Coca ? A l'origine de ce bras de fer au sein de l'industrie du soda, Donald Kendall, le PDG de Pepsi, décédé en septembre dernier. Retour sur son influence, ayant fait de la « guerre » entre Pepsi et Coca le combat de marketing le plus connu au monde, entre ses campagnes publicitaires titanesques et ses dégustations à l’aveugle...

Rock and roller cola wars, I can’t take it any more!” cried Billy Joel in his charttopping song from 1989. “We didn’t start the fire.” He had had enough of the intense marketing battle between America’s fizzy-drinks behemoths. As the underdog, PepsiCo had stunned its bigger rival, Coca-Cola, by signing Michael Jackson, the era’s biggest musical star, to promote its brand in a record-setting $5m deal.

2. The cola wars became a cultural phenomenon. Credit for that goes to Donald Kendall, PepsiCo’s legendary former boss, who died on September 19th aged 99. A gifted salesman, he became the firm’s top sales and marketing executive at the tender age of 35. Seven years later he was named CEO.

3. By the time he stepped down as boss in 1986, PepsiCo’s sales had shot up nearly 40-fold, to $7.6bn. His legacy continues to shape the industry. PepsiCo’s revenues last year of $67bn dwarfed Coca-Cola’s $37bn in sales. 4. Decades before Black Lives Matter he named AfricanAmericans to top jobs, making PepsiCo the first big American firm to do so—staring down racists including the Ku Klux Klan, which organised a boycott.

GIGANTIC MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

5. But his masterstroke was the all-out marketing blitz against Coca-Cola, long the global market leader in non-alcoholic beverages. The two firms had competed for decades, but they mostly fought low-grade battles. Mr Kendall changed that, by forcing both companies into an advertising arms race. In 1975 Coca-Cola spent around $25m on advertising and PepsiCo some $18m. By 1985 those figures had shot up to $72m and $57m, respectively. In 1995 Pepsi outspent Coke by $112m to $82m.

6. This was a risky gambit for both cola rivals. But it paid off in two ways. First, it helped fizzy drinks win a greater “share of throat” (a term