What happened to… Crystal Pepsi?

On this episode of What happened to…? Erica Vella revisits the elusive drink from the 1990s, Crystal Pepsi. She learns why the pop flopped and asks if there is a chance the cola could ever return to store shelves.

Crystal Pepsi was launched in 1992. The soft drink’s creator had arrived at PepsiCo. several months earlier with a goal to innovate.

“One of the reasons why I brought it in is that Pepsi at that point in time was really struggling with sales and we really needed to get the business moving,” said David Novak, who was hired as executive vice-president of marketing sales for Pepsi Cola in 1990.

Novak had previously worked as the senior vice-president of marketing for the chain Pizza Hut.

“I was the first person ever brought in to Pepsi from the foodservice divisions to run marketing. It was a big challenge.”

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“One of the reasons why I was brought in is that we’d had great success at Pizza Hut. We turned the business around and our marketing campaign was great. We had great commercials and people were really excited about what we’d done,” he said.

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From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, companies made the move to create products that were colourless or transparent as it was often equated with purity.

It was called the clear craze and it was first inspired by Ivory soap’s “99.44/100% Pure” campaign.

Novak said he was sitting in his office when he had the idea.

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“I think, hey, if all the clear products are perceived to be better for you, perceived to be healthier and this is where the consumer is really going, how can we do that with Pepsi Cola?” he recalled.

“And it just hit me. I said, ‘Why not have a clear Pepsi?’ And that really started the ball rolling.”

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“We actually took the product into focus groups and consumers loved it. And I thought, ‘Man, I’ve really got a great idea here. This is just unbelievable, you know?’ So, I said we got to get this in the test market, so I met with our R&D people.”

Crystal Pepsi made a big splash at Super Bowl 27. A commercial with Van Halen’s hit song Right Now played in the background.

“It was just a rage. Everybody wanted to get their hands on Crystal Pepsi,” Novak said.

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“We’ve got a home run idea here and we’ve got to really rush and get this thing into national. And what does Pepsi do in a big way every year? Well, they always do the Super Bowl,” he recalled.

Novak thought the cola would be a huge success, but the product was taken off the shelves about two years after its launch.

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In the 30 years since Crystal Pepsi launched, the product has been brought back for limited periods.

Nostalgia collector Jorde Durden has been watching for those releases.

“I was excited to see it back,” he said.

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Crystal Pepsi’s failure in the early 1990s was a learning lesson for Novak.

“You know, the learning that I got out of that was that you really have to involve people, you really have to listen to people,” he said.

On this episode of Global News What happened to…? Novak explains what he believes led to the failed cola and Erica Vella finds out if there’s a chance Crystal Pepsi will be back on the shelves.

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Contact:

Email: erica.vella@globalnews.ca

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