Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:59, 1 September 2006

New Coke is currently a good article nominee. Nominated by an unspecified nominator at 9 August 2006 Please use the |page= parameter to specify the number of the next free GAN review page, or use {{subst:GAN}} instead to find the next free page automatically. This article is not categorized by subtopic. Please edit the |subtopic= parameter on this talk page to include one. For a list of subtopics, please see Misplaced Pages:Good article nominations.

Is there anywhere with a petition to bring back Coke II? I loved it, and I like it better than classic. Classic is too acidic for me. --Splent 01:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

It says that Coca-Cola cans still carry "Classic" on them - I have never seen this in the UK.

Does anyone know if and where Coke II is available?Jon Revelle 07:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Coke II was apparently still being sold in certain parts of Chicago as late as 2001, but now seems to have completely disappeared. (Search the BevBoard at bevnet.com for more info) - 68.37.125.87 16:03, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed: this article needs dates - when the new product was withdrawn. from the article. --cprompt 23:41, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It appears that Coke II may still be being sold. Can anyone confirm this? Rmhermen 00:01, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC)

I was actually arguing with my brother about this. He said he recently had New Coke, but I told him that New Coke hasn't been available since before he was born. Coca-Cola's web site doesn't have any information about a New Coke or Coke II.

--cprompt 01:15, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have heard that the Coke --> New Coke --> Coke Classic was a massive stunt designed to conceal the switch from sugar to the much cheaper, slightly less tasty corn syrup. Anyone know the truth of this?

Nothing at Snopes.com, and they've got everything! Although, there's some interesting stuff about Coca-Cola in there.

--cprompt 21:54, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

See Conspiracy theory. Philwelch 03:38, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I called coca cola probably back in 1999 and the person said they still sold it in the northeastern USA thanks for adding the pictures of the different cans of coke 2

I last saw Coca-Cola II for sale in supermarkets in Buffalo in summer 1993. I have seen it nowhere since. Daniel Case 4 July 2005 04:19 (UTC)

I live in Northeast Wisconsin, and last I saw it was around 1996 or 1997. It's weird though... this grocery store near me still carries C2, and also carries Tab... it was also the last time I saw Coke II. --Splent 01:14, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The link to Coke's official story on this (you know, the one that refers to their "chief competitor" without using its name) says at the very bottom that Coca-Cola II is no longer available in the US. Might it be available abroad somewhere? Daniel Case 4 July 2005 04:23 (UTC)

A minor mess

This article is in a bit of a state. Information shouldn't be presented in one-line paragraphs, and I believe the article should be rearranged so that the facts appear more chronologically. Hopefully someone with more energy than I could attack this. mat_x 18:44, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

ok; took a crack at it. Bbpen 20:08, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Some of the information given in the article, most notably that Coke's marketing department never asked drinkers how they would feel if the new Coke replaced the old one, is contradicted in the Michael Bastedo Angela Davis article (Snopes got it wrong there). I am undertaking to correct this, as well as organize the article better. Daniel Case 6 July 2005 05:01 (UTC)

=should the title be change?

if it is now Coke II should the article be moved? I know most people would probably still call it New Coke but apparently that name has not been used for 15 yearsSmith03 16:00, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Question

I heard somehwere that New Coke actually got better ratings in taste tests than Coca-Cola Classic did, which was why the company did the switch. Can anyone confirm this? And if this is true, should it be put in the article? Mred64 03:32, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

True. Their website (linked at the bottom of the article) gave a figure of 200,000 people in the taste tests who prefered New Coke to old. - Lifefeed 13:46, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

Yes it did, this was widely reported at the time. And I can confirm that I started drinking soda in the first place at the age of 17 because of New Coke. I may be the only one, but I was one. I still think it tasted better than either Classic Coke or Pepsi did at the time.-Daniel Case 4 July 2005 04:18 (UTC)

Reads too much like Prose

This seems to read much too much like prose instead of encyclopedic style. I love it, but I don't know if it is really correct format for Misplaced Pages. Nick Catalano (Talk) 05:54, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is a story where one event follows another. I've seen similar narrative styles elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, and not just in book summaries. There's plenty of information conveyed and I felt it was necessary that the decision to change the formula and then back again be understood in detail as there are some common misperceptions about it.Daniel Case 14:08, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

It's a very nice rewrite, and does a seamless job of adding to the information that was already there. It does have a bit of a prosey flavor, but this will no doubt fade a little as others add to it. I just hope the readability can stay as high as it is. ProhibitOnions

Why, thank you. Daniel Case 23:55, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Might it be nice to have (ahem) pop culture references? I remember there was a Futurama episode...

Sure. Can you give some exact information as to which espisode and what exactly it was? Daniel Case 16:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Wow. This article reads like some epic tale, not an encyclopedia. It makes for a fun read, but it hurts the validity and professionalism of the article, and Misplaced Pages. I'm not sure if I should tag it for cleanup, nevertheless, I will remove some sentences like (and I quote)

"Perhaps, management thought, this might be the answer."

There are a few more instances writing what the people "believed" "thought" etc, which, if not paraphrased, may be libel. It's assuming what the people at Coca-Cola were thinking, which violates POV. Maybe I'm wrong on editing some of this, but the way I see it, you can't write an article and assume so many things in order to add flair to the article. Someone help me on this.--Ikiroid 01:33, 28 December 2005 (UTC)(my discussion page)

Copyvio?

The section on Malcolm Gladwell's flawed-taste-test theory sounds to me like it was copied directly from the book. I don't have the book on hand at the moment; could someone check this? Urocyon 21:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Never mind; I checked and it wasn't. The use of the unusual word "cloying" triggered a false alarm. Urocyon 21:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Tag Change

I'm changing the cleanup tag to "Innapropriate Tone," since that's what most of the discrepency is all about.--ikiroid | (talk) 21:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

What research?

At many points this article makes reference to research without citing it. For example, the section on the Pepsi / Frito Lay merger cites no market data. Such things should be deleted if they are not sourced. Tomyumgoong 08:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I see your edit to the Taste Test section. I tend to agree but when I first read the article a few days ago I did find the now-deleted information interesting (I made a wiktionary link to "cloying", a word I didn't know) and hate to lose it. I went looking for a Taste test page but couldn't find anything. The closest I found was Sensory analysis which is less than a stub. Ewlyahoocom 09:21, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I suspect the information there was from the book mentioned in that section. If it is to be replaced, it should be done in terms that make this clear. It is no better than the opinion of the book's author, and should not be presented as conclusive fact regarding the nature of taste testing and the reasons for the results in the New Coke focus groups. Tomyumgoong 09:55, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I had the chance to read Blink today and have readded the appropriate material (which is actually fascinating) in a way that, at least in the taste-test section, makes it clear what aspect of it is opinion and commentary from the book.

It should really be cited as a reference. Daniel Case 05:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

This book is not accepted or published as primary research. As such if you wish to make claims from it with any phrasing other than "this book alleges" you must source the exact researchers he spoke to, and which studies support your claims (for example, about 7 Up). Otherwise you are engaging in heresay of what Misplaced Pages considers Original research and these comments will still qualify for deletion. Tomyumgoong 08:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Fine. I will provide footnotes and page numbers as soon as I get them again. Daniel Case 17:56, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

And please remember to assume good faith. There is in your comments the suggestion that this is fabricated, and I resent that. Daniel Case 17:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Page numbers from the book only support the claim that "the book states" these things. Citations of primary research could at least merit their inclusion as "this study documents." I do not think you are fabricating, but rather that the book provides a biased and incomplete survey of the taste testing literature. With full citations, a more thorough discussion is possible. There really is no such thing as good faith, there are sourced claims and unsourced ones. Tomyumgoong 10:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

I've begun, and am revising the phrasing in the article to make clearer what Gladwell says and who his sources were. Also I have added his cited sources to the references section. I am not yet finished, though ... I will need to copy the pages of the book out that discuss this to get the exact page numbers. Daniel Case 19:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

If Gladwell is the only person who agrees with Gladwell this text is meaningless. You can just note that there is a book criticising the taste tests. Also the use of the word "importantly" needs to improve. The presentation of the issues discussed in this book is not NPOV. Tomyumgoong 22:08, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, as he is not a scientist, if you cannot locate which researchers he asked and where their results have been published, the whole charade does not really merit inclusion. Tomyumgoong 22:11, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you just post these officious comments, or do you even bother to read the footnotes I put in? That was meant to answer your concerns. Daniel Case 01:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Does the author of the text you reference really claim to have spoken to researchers and present the results of studies without mentioning which researchers or what studies? Tomyumgoong 18:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, he names the people he talked to. Unfortunately, someone took the copy I had been using as a reference out of the library. I was going to put in more exact citations (what's there currently is from Gladwell's bibliography for the chapter). Daniel Case 20:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Can we expect more adequate citations soon? Knowing which studies he references might enable a more complete discussion of the taste test issue. Tomyumgoong 01:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

They're the ones already mentioned as references where I couldn't match them up precisely with what's already in there. The book is checked out through Wednesday so I will see where I can find another copy. Daniel Case 02:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have put attributed quotes from the book in the article and done the footnotes as exactly as I possibly can. Daniel Case 18:14, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I switched to RC during the New Coke period and I liked RC better than New Coke. I didn't like the new version as well as the older version from the beginning. I think the article makes it sound like New Coke was solely a victim to bad press and a fear of change with naysayers only being on some kind of principle rather than taste. This is true in most cases, but not all. As an example of that a link from a 1985 Time article discusses a mostly negative reaction to New Coke, but it's only being used because it has a statement like "Coca Cola industry says sells are up."--T. Anthony 04:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what the research I did has been showing (even you admit it was "true in most cases") and which squares with the way I remember things. Part of the reason we write encylopedia articles, and do research, is to correct what everyone thinks is or was true but actually isn't. Google around and you'll find a lot of myths about New Coke: that nobody liked it, that sales went way down, that all the executives involved got fired, that the company's stock dropped, that it was introduced with the Max Headroom ads ... none of which are true, as anyone can find out by doing the research. Misplaced Pages, like any encyclopedia, should tell you the truth, not reinforce the myth.

The article discusses some of higher-profile negative reactions to New Coke (the Astrodome scoreboard, Gay Mullins's group). But people remember the more visible things from that time period, not the facts that were quietly recorded and are still there. The media reported the negative reactions, but never tried to find people who actually liked the drink ... most of whom, as the focus-group research showed and the anecdote Keough reported suggested, kept quiet because they didn't want to start arguments with people who didn't like it. Daniel Case 05:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

These are still a mess, and need to be cleaned up. Also, Gladwell's book should not be referenced in place of the studies he claims to report. Only primary research merits the statement of these things directly. Tomyumgoong 21:27, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Glad to see you finally found this article important enough to drop by again. Glad we're "getting closer."

The reason I have these cited to Gladwell is that, other than what he's referred to in his bibliography, there are no other sources. Market research people generally do studies such as the 7UP one for private clients, not journals; thus other than what they may share with the public there is nothing to report. I believe that going on the record, for attribution, to a reputable journalist who writes for the New Yorker and then republishes it in a book by a reputable publisher is as close as we're going to get and counts as a reliable source.

We have to decide how scientific we're going to be here. This article (which I have begun to have delusions about getting up to featured status ... somebody shoot me, please :-)), if it's going to be done as a bang-up job, will draw its main facts from work by business writers (like Gladwell, I would say, even though he didn't really start out to be one), who often are the only people to report the results of a company's internal market research and such.

A key part of the New Coke narrative, as it's shaping up to me, is that Coke was so convinced that taste and taste alone was what drove Pepsi's success that they forgot the impact of the brand. One of the key pieces of evidence for that is that when the Pepsi Challenge was done unblind (i.e., when tasters knew they were sampling Coke or Pepsi), Coke won.

Now, the only place you're going to find this AFAIK is the Robert Oliver history of Coke, The Real Thing. Since he doesn't republish the entire original study, word for word, chart for chart, datum for datum, would that count as a reliable source under this standard?

I'll take a look at some similar articles (similar in that they rely on books by business writers) and see how this is treated there. Daniel Case 00:14, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

As an outsider here, I've just read this discussion, and have a comment on the statement "Gladwell's book should not be referenced in place of the studies he claims to report." Wiki policy is totally dependent on references. Is someone can find a reference for something, then it is perfectly legitimate (in Wiki terms) to state that thing and give the reference as to where it was obtained from. Someone else might think, or even know, that the information is not true, but that would not be a legitimate stance as it would be POV (a point of view).

The only way it would be legitimate in Wiki to refute the statement would be to find somewhere that it was refuted, to quote that refutation and to give the reference. Then both things would stand in the article 1) the original info 2) the info from the source that had refuted it. This is NPOV (neutral point of view), i.e. our job is to report what other people are saying across the spectrum and not to decide ourselves which of it is true and which isn't. That is up to the reader of Wiki to decide.

I'm not saying this is the perfect way to arrive at the truth, but it is a policy tht allows differences to be settled. I reached this article via a situation with the Jennifer Fitzgerald one. Bush may or may not have had an affair with her - that is not up to the Wiki editor to decide. It is the editor's job to report that certain newspaper articles said he did—and also to report that he denied this. I hope this is of some help.

Tyrenius 05:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Brain tumours

I have removed the following, as it is such a serious charge that it cannot be allowed to stand without substantiation:

New coke caused many people to develop brain tumors.

Tyrenius 12:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. In fact, it is so off-base that I consider it vandalism. if the user who put in (their first and only edit) puts it back in I will begin the usual parade of warnings. Daniel Case 15:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Expansion

I have finally gotten to sit down and read the Hays, Oliver and Prendergast books so I can finally add some good stuff (and references to support it) into the article. Hopefully I will be done with it this weekend. Daniel Case 05:24, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I found images of othe new coke (american can) here. http://www.deadprogrammer.com/?m=200509 --larsinio (poke) 18:52, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Intriguing. I don't think this guy realizes that what he drank is actually older ... vintage 1985 New Coke. The "NEW!" stripe was discontinued as soon as Classic Coke came out.

An apparent can of regular Coke from 1985-92 would also count. Daniel Case 02:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

On Hold!

Hello, everyone. I'm giving you a reprieve by putting this article on hold for a week instead of failing it outright, because I really believe that you can make this into a GA.

The basic problem is this: the style of writing is prosaic, not encyclopedic. It reads like it should be entitled "The Saga of New Coke," not "New Coke ()."I absolutely love it, but it isn't really right for Misplaced Pages.

If someone or everyone puts a lot of work into this article, it can be a GA by the time the week is over. I'm giving you seven days, and that's a lot of time, so you'd better get going! Or else I WILL fail you the next time around XD. (I'm serious.) Eilicea 14:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• GAN error
• Good article nominees
• Good article nominees awaiting review
• Good article nominees without a subtopic