E1260 - Best Of 2025: The 'New Coke' Debacle

Happy New Year, Retrospectors! We’ll return with new episodes from Monday 5th January, but in the meantime the team have been choosing their favourite episodes from 2025 that are worthy of a second listen. First up, Olly has selected our conversation about ‘New Coke’.

Coca-Cola was approaching its 100th birthday on 23rd April, 1985, when it unveiled a new beverage at New York City's Lincoln Center: the ‘smoother, rounder, bolder’ flavour of ‘New Coke’.

The success of Diet Coke had fragmented the market, and, in response to Pepsi's aggressive marketing campaigns targeting younger consumers, Coke had sought to intr...