Coke's Quest for Cool

(2 of 2)

Coke's quest of cool began with the Designers Republic, based in Sheffield, England, which dreamed up the Love Being model. Studios from Tokyo, São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa, came up with other variations.

The M5s will show up first in Germany, Spain, Italy, Mexico and Brazil, among other key markets, later this year. In 15 to 20 months, after the bottles' global tour, Coke will decide whether to retire the new designs or try to produce them on a broader scale. In the U.S., Coke worked with MK12, based in Kansas City, Mo., to fashion a bottle that will get Coke noticed in the right places, as in music videos. On his blog, Matt Fraction, one of MK12's founders, described his team's artistic freedom: "They left everyone alone to do the work. No product placement, no credit. They didn't want a Coke commercial."

That's a radical departure for a company that buys advertising by the ton, but given the lagging sales line, Coke's executives realized they had better be open to experimenting with their best-selling cola's image. "There was clearly a point where we lagged behind in innovation," says Mathieu. "If we need to be an icon again, we need to understand what it takes to be an icon."

To some industry experts, Coke's innovative project may be missing the point. Diet brands, for instance, are the fastest-growing soda segment. Coke has seven low-calorie versions of its cola, ranging from Caffeine-Free Diet Coke to Diet Coke with Lime; diet drinks make up 29% of the soda market, according to Beverage Digest. Pepsi earlier this year announced that Diet Pepsi would become its flagship brand, a tectonic shift. "Cola is the fastest-declining category, and for Coke to succeed, they need a new blueprint," says Phil Lempert, food-industry analyst and author of The Lempert Report.

Lempert and others argue that it's time for Coke to tamper with its famous and famously secret ingredient mix. Most Coke is sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, yet kids in Latin America are drinking sugar-based, fruit-flavored beverages, he says. Lempert says the cola market will continue to dry up without a radical recipe shift. "The savior of cola, and I don't know who's going to do it first, Coke or Pepsi, is the reintroduction of the core product, substituting sugar for the high-fructose corn syrup."

That's unlikely anytime soon, but if recent intros are any indication, innovation under Isdell will stretch beyond trendy bottle designs. Coca-Cola Blak, a single serving carbonated coffee, and Dasani Sensations, a line of flavored sparkling waters, are among the highly regarded new drinks in the pipeline. Tab Energy, expected to launch later this year, is aimed at women and the market for healthier sodas. Like the M5 Coke bottles, Tab Energy's containers will feature a novel design (slender and pink), as will the new Von Dutch energy drink (camouflage cans). "When thirsty people go into a store looking for something to drink, the package sells the product. It's a brand's last chance to sell itself," says Hemphill. It's an acknowledgement that in the vastly overcrowded beverage aisle, every advantage counts.