Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 3, 1993 TAG: 9302020247
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KAROL V. MENZIE THE BALTIMORE SUN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
IT'S CLEAR TO SEE COLAS HAVE A NEW GIMMICK
Clearly something is going on.Marketers are introducing new products, ranging from dish detergent to garbage bags to soft drinks, that are clear. Colorless. Without dye.
Consumers outside of Roanoke - a test market for the past six months - got a sparkling opportunity during the broadcast of the Super Bowl XXVII on Sunday, when the Pepsi-Cola Co. officially rolled out its new Crystal Pepsi to the theme, "You've never seen a taste like this."
There are plenty of other clear drinks on the market: old-timers like Sprite and 7 Up, newcomers like Clearly Canadian, plus bottled waters like Perrier and Saratoga. Why introduce a clear cola?
"Basically we took a traditional carbonated soft drink, a cola - the most popular flavor in the U.S., with about 70 percent of the market - and married that with some of the attributes of the so-called `New Age' products," said Gary Hemphill, manager of public relations for Pepsi-Cola Co., based in Purchase, N.Y. Such products are characteristically "lighter, less sweet-tasting, with no preservatives, no caffeine and all-natural flavors," he said. Crystal Pepsi "does have a distinct cola taste," Hemphill said, "but it definitely tastes a little lighter. To me, it's not quite so sweet" as regular Pepsi.
Although cola drinks still dominate the soft drink market, Hemphill said, sales growth has slowed somewhat in recent years. "We think this is one way to add some excitement to the category."
The trend toward clear colas, said Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y., is "just a way of extending a product line without really doing anything. There's nothing new to this; years ago cream sodas were clear."
There may be a perception among consumers that the clear colas are New Age soft drinks, Celente said. "But it's not a New Age soft drink. The public is looking for a purer product, but taking the color out doesn't do that. Benzene or turpentine can be `clear' products."
Not to be outdone in the highly competitive beverage market, Coca-Cola Co. announced last month that it was introducing a clear version of its diet soft drink, Tab. Tab Clear is already distributed in 10 markets, and the company expects to have it available nationwide by the end of the year.
"The idea of a clear cola's been around for years," said Randy Donaldson, a spokesman for Coca-Cola U.S.A. in Atlanta. "But in our case, the positioning is a little bit different than the rest of the beverage industry." Crystal Pepsi, he said, "is very much a Pepsi product, but it's positioned as an alternative, New Age kind of drink. With Tab Clear, we're not being `clear-centric.' We're marketing it as the ultimate diet soft drink that just happens to be clear."
Tab Clear will be sweetened with the artificial sweetener aspartame, so it will be calorie-free. But, unlike Crystal Pepsi, it won't be caffeine-free.
"About 65 percent of all soft drinks sold in the U.S. are made up of just six products," said Donaldson. They include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, caffeinated Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Dr Pepper and Diet Dr Pepper. "They're all caramel-colored and characterized as having a lot of flavor," he said. "Tab Clear will be positioned in the mainstream, because it's got a lot of flavor. So why did we make it clear? To appeal to those people who are experimenting in the soft-drink choices. It's another option."
The new cola beverages join a host of other clear products on the market: clear Ivory soap (it doesn't float) and clear Ivory dish-washing liquid; clear Palmolive dish-washing detergent; clear Softsoap skin cleanser; clear Caladryl calamine lotion (the old version was neon pink); clear deodorants (billed as not leaving a white residue on skin or clothing); clear Band-aids; clear Amoco gasoline (for a "cleaner" environment); and Glad Clear garbage bags (reportedly not a hit, because people don't really want to see their trash).
What's the message here?
Sidney Mintz, a professor of anthropology at Johns Hopkins University who has a professional interest in people's eating habits, suggests two factors are at work. One is the continuation of a normal human trait, the search for purity, "the real thing."
"A general marker of human progress is refinement," he said. "Refinement in food products is to extract the essence. The emphasis on purity has led to highly refined products" - white sugar, for instance. Extracting the color from colas makes them seem somehow purer and more refined.
The second factor is commercial, as marketers respond to consumer concerns about their own health and the health of the environment. "As people have become fatter - and more concerned about it - advertisers have begun to emphasize clarity, purity, lightness," Mintz said. "Clear, pure, waterlike stuff" is a response to "people being scared of dying of too much cholesterol," he said.
"The trend in this society is toward variability and choice in the marketplace," said Manfred Kroger of Pennsylvania State University, a member of the Institute of Food Technologists' expert panel. "Anything that will take a little bite out of the competition. Companies are bending over backward to make new products - `clear' is just one of them." One thing is certain, he said: If one or two clear products arrive, many more are sure to follow. "If one does it, the others will follow suit. Soon the entire industry will do it."
And where the creators go, will consumers follow?
"We don't expect people who drink Coke Classic every day to switch to Tab Clear," said Donaldson of Coca-Cola. "But people who still drink a variety of soft drinks, who are still experimenting, those are the people we expect to try it."