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CEO Neville Isdell, who took over at the world's biggest beverage company in June, has vowed to jump-start Coke's pace of innovation. Tepid ad and new-product efforts of recent years failed to revive growth. In November, Isdell cut Coke's long-term volume growth forecast to a more realistic 3 percent to 4 percent per year from the previous 5 percent to 6 percent. He promised to boost annual spending on advertising and product development by 20 percent.
"Coke needs to have an aggressive innovation program this year," says John Sicher, editor of Beverage Digest. "Bottlers are saying they need more new products, and Coke has heard them and is responding."
What's in store for products:
• New Cokes. Following the success of Diet Coke with Lime, regular Coca-Cola with Lime rolls out by the end of March.
A new diet brand, tentatively called Coke Zero, might line up with Diet Coke, the No. 1 diet soft drink. The new variety would be sweetened with sucralose, as opposed to the aspartame in Diet Coke.
Coke also is considering a new citrus-flavored soft drink - Vault - to take on Pepsi's top-selling citrus, Mountain Dew.
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Beyond products, new Classic Coke ads rolled out on Tuesday with the opening of its fourth-season sponsorship of Fox's "American Idol." The new ad theme, "Make it Real," builds on the previous "Real" ad campaign.
http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/0120Coke-ON.html
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