Crystal Pepsi Case Study

Crystal Pepsi was one of the new product developments by PepsiCo. It was launched in 1992 as new colorless soda with marketing slogan of “You’ve never seen a taste like this”. The idea of introducing Crystal Pepsi appeared when consumers at that time were health conscious. Thus PepsiCo created this drinks to give an impression of pureness, clarify and health. They marketed this product formula as caffeine-free and pure alternative to the classic reddish brown normal colas. Crystal Pepsi developed to compete with new age drinks like Clearly Canadian and Quibell.

Test markets were conducted on Crystal Pepsi taste where it was tested by 5,000 participants in Denver, Sacramento, Dallas and Providence for nine months. The markets test gave a positive response and as a result of it, PepsiCo officially launched the new product on 12 April 1992 and began to sell in United States and Canada. It was sold in Australia for shorter period and slightly longer period in Europe. Huge marketing

The name “Crystal” defined as clean, pure and clear. Even though Crystal Pepsi is colorless and had clear look from the outside packaging, it did not have the pureness of taste. The name failed to attract Generation-X to try and purchase. Other than that, with the perception and impression of current Pepsi-Cola drinks, it was difficult to accept Crystal Pepsi as healthy drink by consumers. Crystal Pepsi was lack of product elements in marketing where the attributes, information and use value of the product was not clearly identified by the consumers. Moreover, the packaging design was not outstanding enough to attract consumers. Since most of the carbonated drinks packaging were similar such as 325ml in can, 500 ml and 1.5 litres in PET bottle, these did not give the consumers a significant features for Crystal Pepsi to stand out of other colorless carbonated