New Coke: the cola that won Coca-Cola's biggest taste test and lost America
How Coca-Cola decided to bring back the old Coke
In June 1985, a survey of Coke drinkers was read over the phone, recorded on tape and driven six hours to a ranch in Argentina. Less than three weeks later, Coca-Cola had a new name, a new can and a very hard decision behind it.
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In June 1985, Brian Dyson, the head of Coca-Cola in the United States, is at his family's ranch in Argentina. He still wants the newest survey of customers. It is read over the phone to Buenos Aires, recorded on a tape, and driven six hours to the ranch.
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The news on the tape is bad: the anger is not fading. Dyson sums it up in one line: people "had fallen in love with the memory of old Coke". On 28 June, he flies back to Atlanta.
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