Pepsi Throwback: An idea who's time has come...and gone.

I admit it. I love colas. Far more than I should. In fact, when I wanna lose weight (which is most of the time), I swear off them (or swear at them), as it’s a great way to eliminate empty calories from my diet. But oh, what I lose when I do so…that rush I get with the morning’s first intake of caffeine! The bite of the cola as it trickles across my palette. The joy of cola, indeed.

But since I was a kid, colas – virtually ANY colas – have become a mere shadow of themselves, thanks to bottlers’ ever-changing formulas designed to save a buck. I speak of the vile change from the traditional pure cane sugar to the concoction known as “high-fructose corn syrup,” A.K.A.: “HFCS.” If you have a can or bottle of your carbonated sugar water beverage of choice at hand, feel free to take a gander at the ingredients. I’ll wait…

…Back? Good. Did you notice the absence of “real” sugar and the substitution of high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients list? Yep. Unless you’re drinking something from South o’ the border or a product of a micro-bottler (i.e.: Jones Soda), you’re getting the UNreal thing, regardless of brand. Bottlers made the big switcheroo years ago to save over the escalating price of cane sugar. That switch came with a steep price – first of all, the bite of cane sugar is not in any way replicated in corn sugar. Second, there are some fairly well-documented health concerns regarding HFCS in foods.

Now I’m not a doctor, research scientist, or some kind of eco-Nazi, on the warpath against “Frankenfoods.” I’m sure the folks over at the High-fructose Corn Syrup lobby are not bad people (call off the dogs, guys!) and their product is not the spawn of Satan, as some would have you believe. But I have a hard time swallowing (no pun intended) their argument that because corn is all-natural, that HFCS is every bit as natural, and therefore harmless.

You see, there have been some links noted between HFCS and increased cases of diabetes. Is this true? No idea. Should we ban HFCS without proof? Of course not. Should we study this more and not let a lobbyist group throw up a big smokescreen campaign to divert our attention from what could be a real health issue? Undoubtedly.

But I’m not here today to argue about the relative merits of HFCS and links to diabetes. I’m here to rag on Pepsi for a really stupid marketing idea.

Soda Cognoscenti the world over will tell you (and tell you, and tell you) that cane sugar makes for a vastly superior pour over beet sugar or corn sugar. End of discussion. They’ll also decry the day that bottlers made the switch, and claim they’d be happy to pay the extra coin to get that cane sugar rush back. And Pepsi has (temporarily) obliged, with the release of their “Throwback” line of beverages featuring REAL corn sugar.

I mean, if the Throwback cans contain (by their own admission, remember) “real” sugar, what in the Sam Hill have they been putting in the OTHER cans of Pepsi? That would be the aforementioned HFCS – one of those slightly mysterious ingredients you see in processed foods, like MSG or something else with an unpronounceable name that only a lab rat could love.

So if I’m a cane sugar fan, why do I object to this campaign?

Simple. It’s every bit as stupid and damning to their core product line as “Budweiser Select” is to Bud. You see, what Pepsi is acknowledging here is that their drinks used to taste better. A LOT better. And if you buy their “Throwback” Pepsis, Mountain Dews, et all, you’ll taste what I mean. There is an entire (Pepsi) generation of kids that have never had the oral pleasure of downing a cane sugar drink. What’s to be gained here for Pepsi?

Now I know that PepsiCo is King of the Line Extensions. They’ve never met a brand they couldn’t weaken by extending it one more direction. Pepsi. Diet Pepsi. Pepsi One. Pepsi Clear (you get the picture…not that Coca Cola is any better in this regard). So the Throwback line is completely in character for Pepsi. But I don’t get what they are trying to accomplish. It’s not being marketed as a premium pour. The ad campaign is hammering on the nostalgia theme. Huh? I mean, they are admitting (on the one hand) that the old-ways is the best-ways, and on the other, not doing a thing to try and protect their core products. Self-cannibalization is STILL cannibalization, after all. And what if demand is such that they are forced to either keep the Throwback line around, or end up going back to cane sugar all together? Unless sugarcane prices have plunged recently, I doubt that it’s cheaper than corn syrup, and I suspect the corn syrup lobby will NOT go quietly into that good night, especially as the Ethanol thing hasn’t quite worked out according to their master plan for energy domination.

What is Pepsi’s game plan here? (Artificially) Color me “mystified.” While I vastly prefer cane sugar over corn (not to mention Coke over Pepsi – sorry, guys), I just don’t get it. And this is coming from a guy who willingly pays over a buck per king-sized bottle for “Mexican Coca-Cola,” made with REAL cane sugar. (I figure they taste better, and the additional cost keeps me from downing more than one per day.)

If anybody can shed light on Pepsi’s end-game, I’d be fascinated to hear about it. Without some inside knowledge, I’m afraid that their “Throwback” campaign is going to do little more than “Throw Away” their level playing field with their competitors, at a premium price for cane sugar. On the other hand, if this somehow results in Pepsi, Coke, et all, returning to their sugarcane roots, I’ve but one thing to say about it.

Sweet!

That brings us to the latest offering from the folks at Mountain Dew. Dew’s ads have long been edgy and almost too hip for the room – their Super Bowl riff on the Bohemian Rhapsody is a classic. Their latest ad features a send-up of the Lincoln-Douglass debates – a pivital moment in American History. In the Dew version, Lincoln (who was in reality a fan of Greco-Roman wrestling – NOT the stuff that passes for “wrestling” on WWE), strips to the waste and proceeds to go Medieval, waging Civil War on Douglass and others on the dias.

Color me unimpressed.

I just don’t see the humor, past the shock value of seeing an American icon strip to the waist and sport an American eagle tattoo. Newhart’s comedy was funny. This spot? Flat. Which is not a good thing for a soda ad to be.

Hopefully, the Dew ad pulls well with the 15 to 24 crowd, which I suspect is their target market. (I’m not a Mountain Dew fan – never have been, and likely never will be.) If, on the other hand, they want to reach a wider demographic, they might want to look at creating ads with a humor level somewhere above that of Jackass The Movie.