Diet Coke sells billions of cases every year. The bubbly liquid in these containers wasn’t the first low-calorie soda—Diet Rite took that title decades before. But they got two things right in a big way: the taste, and who they targeted (it wasn’t just for diabetics anymore).
Diet Coke solved a problem: people wanted a satisfying, low-calorie soft drink that didn’t compromise on the taste or the experience of drinking a real one. But:
Soft drinks had a lot of sugar
Low-calorie soft drinks didn’t taste good
And a stigma came with drinking a low-calorie soda
Low-calorie sodas were created for people suffering from diabetes who were taking in too much sugar. Given the feedback from the earliest low-calorie sodas, they didn’t drink well. A less-than-flavorful sip was followed by a metallic after-taste. But, these early predecessors offered a solution to an earlier problem: a carbonated beverage that didn’t have much sugar.
Big products often come out of redefining a problem. Before Diet Coke, people thought that low-calorie sodas were specifically for people who couldn’t have sugar. Coca-Cola saw an opportunity to create a drink with a comparable taste to the real thing but with significantly fewer calories.
They arbitraged the market. There was a trend of health-conscious people who still wanted a drink to snack on, but didn’t want the extra sugar that came it with. They set their sights on people who didn’t want to drink sugar, but still wanted the taste. Reframing the problem. It became a liquid refreshment for those not willing to waste their calorie budget on a drink.
First, Coke bosses had to tackle the taste without the sugar. Low-calorie drinks existed—Tab was one that Coca-Cola created—but they didn’t taste right. Artificial sweeteners created the sugar effect, but they had a weird flavor. Some were downright banned (like the cyclamate used in Tab).
Aspartame was a more fitting substitute for sugar. It made the Diet Coke recipe taste close enough to the original. This chemical was significantly less expensive than the cane sugar used in full-sweet sodas. Which made the margins on Diet Coke better. Aspartame was approved by the FDA in 1981, and Diet Coke launched in 1982. Coca-Cola used the combination of aspartame (a technology) and flavor engineering to generate a taste as close as possible, and create the best possible product.
Outside of the original market for diabetic patients, the market for low-calorie drinks was dominated by women. Coke wanted to change that. They aimed to make Diet Coke cool for man men.
And unlike previous light sodas, they lead marketing with taste, not the amount of calories. Diet Coke became a treat for the people who cared about their bodies. It was still Coke, you were just choosing a better version for you. The marketing removed the stigma that low-cal drinks were just for people who couldn’t have full-featured pop.
The company iterated on its Diet Coke hit. After learning not everyone wanted to consume caffeine through Diet Coke, they created a caffeine-free version. Now you could drink Coke endlessly without consuming any caffeine or any calories.
In 2005, Walmart convinced Coca-Cola to create a “Diet Coke flavored with Splenda” version. For a variety of reasons, they decided to rename the formula for broader appeal as “Coke Zero”.
The near-zero calorie, almost Coke taste led Diet Coke to be the best possible solution for the growing number of health-conscious folks. They used what they had at hand, like the winning recipe of the original Coke. And they jumped in to leverage new tech like the aspartame sweetener.
With clever marketing, Coca-Cola was able to create a larger market for the soda, eventually expanding it like a brand of its own with caffeine-free and Coke Zero formulations. Diet Coke wasn’t the first, but it is the best. They rode the wave of consumer wants to create the most demanded low-calorie treat. Each iteration solving a slightly new problem.