Coca-Cola Calamity Soft Drink Colossus Gathers Employees To Celebrate Its Biggest Blunder

Ten years after what many consider the greatest blunder in corporate history, The CocaCola Co. took time Monday to poke some fun at itself and the ill-fated decision to give the world New Coke.

But Coke’s top executives also used the occasion to tell employees that they should not be afraid to take risks despite the flop of New Coke, which was launched April 23, 1985.

“Some people second-guess everything The Coca-Cola Co. does,” said Roberto C. Goizueta, Coke’s chairman and chief executive. “History and hindsight require no vision … you only stumble when you’re moving.”

A decade removed from the crisis, Coke’s bosses were able to reflect on New Coke with a sense of humor.

As the lights dimmed in the auditorium at the company’s Atlanta headquarters, a standing room only crowd of almost 600 employees saw a scene from “The Simpsons,” in which a group of hobos, including one depicted as New Coke’s inventor, tell what led them down the road to ruin.

And in a dig at the news media, Goizueta read, a la David Letterman, his Top 10 list of Coca-Cola blunders as reported in the press. Each item, however, was something the media called a mistake but turned out to be a success for the company.

The No. 1 blunder on the list was calling employees together to celebrate the company’s “most embarrassing moment.”

“Even 10 years after the fact, articles about New Coke continue to be good business and sell newspapers,” Goizueta said.

New Coke was a reformulated version of Coca-Cola designed to meet a decline in the popularity of the old brand. An unprecedented consumer revolt forced the company to bring back the original about three months later.

Though they concede New Coke itself was a big mistake, Coca-Cola officials said the move made sense at the time. Displaying documents marked confidential, the employees were shown charts tracing a decline in Coca-Cola’s market share despite increased marketing spending in the 1970s and early ‘80s.

What they didn’t anticipate, Goizueta and others said, was the strong emotional bond consumers had to the original formula.

Goizueta said the company learned an invaluable lesson about pleasing consumers. Since 1985, Coke’s share of the soft drink business and market value have grown considerably, a point repeatedly made at Monday’s gathering.