Battling It Out

It may become the promotion battle of the century. Pepsi-Cola last week responded with a quick advertising onslaught to Coca-Cola's announcement that it had reconcocted its 99-year-old secret formula. Pepsi began the estimated $2.5 million campaign, produced by Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, with a 30-second prime-time spot that will be broadcast for a month on the three major networks. In the ad a wistful-looking teenage girl stares straight at the camera and says, "Would somebody out there tell me why Coke did it? Why they changed? They told us they were 'the real thing.' Then they said they were 'it.' Then--kablooie. They changed. So now I'm going to taste my first Pepsi. But I still want to know why Coke changed." The girl takes a swig of Pepsi and says, "Mmmm. Now I know."

So eager was Pepsi to capitalize on its rival's new taste that it videotaped the commercial the weekend after Coke's surprise announcement and rushed it onto the air the following Monday. Normally television advertisements are done on film, and production can take months. Explained Director of Publicity Rebecca Madeira: "We are taking advantage of what we see as a big window to win over dyed-in-the-wool Coca-Cola drinkers."

Coke, though, will answer the Pepsi Challenge. Last week, for example, company officials sped some of the first cans of the new drink from a Queens bottling plant to Manhattan's Battery Park, where they loaded them aboard a tugboat and took them to Liberty Island. Then in a brief ceremony, Charles E.F. Millard, chairman of the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of New York, presented a can to a worker on the Statue of Liberty renovation project. As the new Coke is introduced into various marketing areas, it will be accompanied by a barrage of commercials, including one that shows a gigantic can rising out of the earth, and more than 20 featuring Coca-Cola Pitchman Bill Cosby.

The official debut will take place in Atlanta this week on the 99th anniversary of the original product's birth. The company will transform the city's downtown park into a three-ring circus. Theme for the day: "Step right up to the greatest taste on earth." Coke will also be launching 25,000 red and white balloons, skywriters, banner-flying planes and a skyful of fireworks. Said Coca-Cola Spokesman Robert Hope in a moment of candor: "We're using every glitzy thing you can imagine."