Coca-Cola Changed Its Formula and Caved in 79 Days

On April 23, 1985, Coca-Cola did something it had never done in nearly a century of business: it changed the formula. The company was worried. Pepsi was gaining ground, and blind taste tests showed consumers actually preferred Pepsi's sweeter flavor. So Coca-Cola scrapped its original recipe and launched a reformulated version. They called it New Coke.

The Formula Change Nobody Asked For

The decision came after nearly 200,000 consumer taste tests - and New Coke won most of them. Coca-Cola's executives were confident. The rollout on April 23, 1985 was the first time the company had changed its flagship formula in 99 years. At a press conference, CEO Roberto Goizueta called it "the surest move we have ever made."

The Phone Lines Melt Down

America disagreed. Within weeks, Coca-Cola's consumer hotline - which typically handled around 400 calls a day - was fielding 1,500 calls a day by June 1985, almost all of them complaints. Callers compared the company to traitors. One woman wrote in to say she felt as though a family member had died. People drove to supermarkets and cleared shelves of old Coke. One customer spent $1,000 at a local bottler to secure his supply.

The Protest Movement

In Seattle, a retiree named Gay Mullins used borrowed money to found the Old Cola Drinkers of America. He set up a bank of phone lines, held press conferences, and threatened a class-action lawsuit. The group signed up 100,000 members in weeks. Another organization - the Society for the Preservation of the Real Thing - formed around the same time. Demonstrators gathered outside Coca-Cola's Atlanta headquarters carrying signs that read "We want the real thing."

79 Days Later

On July 11, 1985 - just 79 days after the New Coke launch - Coca-Cola executives held a press conference to announce the original formula was coming back. It would be sold as Coca-Cola Classic. Within two days of the announcement, the hotline received 31,600 calls - nearly all celebrating. New Coke limped on for a few years before being renamed Coke II in 1992, then discontinued. Coca-Cola Classic has been the company's dominant product ever since.