Market research[edit]

One of Coke's ads to promote the flavor change.

Coca-Cola's most senior executives commissioned a secret effort named "Project Kansas"
headed by marketing vice president Sergio Zyman and Brian Dyson, president of Coca-Cola USA
to test and perfect the new flavor for Coke itself. It took its name from a famous photo of that state's
renowned journalist William Allen White drinking a Coke; the image[6] had been used extensively in
its advertising and hung on several executives' walls. [7] The company's marketing department again
went out into the field, this time armed with samples of the possible new drink for taste
tests, surveys, and focus groups.
The results of the taste tests were strong the sweeter mixture overwhelmingly beat both regular
Coke and Pepsi. Then tasters were asked if they would buy and drink it if it were Coca-Cola. Most
said yes, they would, although it would take some getting used to. A small minority, about 1012%,
felt angry and alienated at the very thought, saying that they might stop drinking Coke altogether.
Their presence in focus groups tended to skew results in a more negative direction as they exerted
indirect peer pressure on other participants.[8]
The surveys, which were given more significance by standard marketing procedures of the era, were
less negative and were key in convincing management to move forward with a change in the formula
for 1985, to coincide with the drink's centenary. But the focus groups had provided a clue as to how
the change would play out in a public context, a data point that the company downplayed but which
was to prove important later.[9]
Management also considered, but quickly rejected, an idea to simply make and sell the new flavor
as yet another Coke variety. The company's bottlers were already complaining about absorbing
other recent additions into the product line since Diet Coke in 1982. Many of them had sued over the
company's syrup pricing policies. A new variety of Coke in competition with the main variety could, if

successful, also cannibalize Cokes existing sales and increase the proportion of Pepsi drinkers
relative to Coke drinkers.
Early in his career with Coca-Cola, Goizueta had been in charge of the
company's Bahamian subsidiary. In that capacity, he had improved sales by tweaking the drink's
flavor slightly, so he was receptive to the idea that changes to the taste of Coke could lead to
increased profits. He believed it would be "New Coke or no Coke",[10] and the change must take place
openly.[8] He insisted that the containers carry the "New!" label, which gave the drink its popular
name.[11]
Goizueta also made a visit to his mentor and predecessor as the company's chief executive, the
ailing Robert W. Woodruff, who had built Coke into an international brand following World War II. He
claimed he had secured Woodruff's blessing for the reformulation, but even many of Goizueta's
closest friends within the company doubt that Woodruff truly understood what Goizueta intended. [12][13]