Coca-Cola Changes Its Stripes, Adding a Bit of Blue to ‘New’ Coke Cans

A touch of blue will ornament traditional red-and-white Coca-Cola cans as the cola maker tries to entice Americans to drink more “new” Coke.

The change of Coke’s trademark “dynamic stripe” is the first altering of the design since it was developed almost 20 years ago.

The tricolor scheme was intended to further differentiate the new Coke from Coca-Cola Classic.

Coke maintains that sales of the new formula are stable, even though the company had to bring back the old formula as Coca-Cola Classic to meet consumer demand.

The Atlanta-based company says the packaging change is intended “to maximize shelf impact and achieve trademark uniformity on packaging.”

The switch means that both Coke and Pepsi will feature cola in red, white and blue cans. But is Coke copying its archrival?

“If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we’re pleased,” chuckled Pepsi-Cola spokesman Todd MacKenzie, noting that red, white and blue have been on Pepsi packaging for several years.

Jesse Meyers, publisher of the industry-respected Beverage Digest, sees no subtle messages in the change.

“It’s just the bottom of that dynamic stripe that’s blue,” Meyers said in a telephone interview from Old Greenwich, Conn. “These are refinements; these are not major changes.

“What they’re doing now is another step in attempting to position new Coke against Pepsi while Classic, godlike, floats above the common fight somewhere in the heavens.”

The redesign, which includes slight packaging changes for most Coke brands, follows Pepsi’s tinkering with its lead product last year when the company incorporated subtle changes in the typeface and graphics on cans of Pepsi.

“It’s the Pepsi look. We feel that we have an image and a status ... and the package design is a part of that,” MacKenzie said by telephone from Pepsi-Cola offices in Somers, N.Y.

Coke first discussed the changes during the company’s centennial celebration in Atlanta last year.

Test marketing will begin this month in Montgomery, Ala., and Fort Wayne, Ind., the company said. The new design eventually will appear on company trucks, vending machines and fountain outlets, with a full changeover expected by 1989.

Meyers said Coca-Cola brands account for 39.9% of the $25-billion wholesale market, with new Coke accounting for about 3% of the total. Pepsi brands account for 29.8% of the wholesale market, he said.

Other changes include the word “Coke” in bigger, bolder type, with a forward tilt, in an alignment closer to the traditional script of the Coca-Cola logo.

All sugar colas, including Cherry Coke, will feature the traditional brilliant red backgrounds with white logos. The one-calorie brands will have white backgrounds with red or burgundy logos. All brands, with the exception of Coca-Cola Classic, will feature new backgrounds of varying stripes, the company said.