The Cola Wars are on again

It’s not like Pepsi and Coca Cola had to do a whole lot of homework in the manufacturing and packaging of their newest products.

First of all, Pepsi’s is being called ‘True’ – and in an age of hype, hypocrisy and information overload, anything with a bit of ‘honesty’ to its name has got to be a good thing, commercially speaking.

Coca Cola’s new product is being labelled ‘Life’ – and we don’t need to tell you how important a word that is.

Secondly, both products’ packaging comes in that most trusted of colours – green. A shiny, neon, practically-going-to-blind-you green.

Ultimately, both products contain a ‘new’ ingredient in the form of stevia – a natural sweetener and ‘superfood’ that even clean-eating folk are happy to consume.

Pepsi’s ‘True’ will be sold on Amazon.com (yes) later this month before being made available on shop shelves. Coca Cola’s ‘Life’ will hit stores in November.

The carefully devised content and packaging of these soft drinks follow relentless reports on obesity that have been appearing in the US and Australian media over the past few years, with Aussies and Americans having cut back drastically on drinking the brown stuff due to obesity and other health scares.

Only more market studies in 12 months’ time will tell if the new products see our soda-drinking on the up again.  Antonino Tati