Pepsi Challenge
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The Pepsi Challenge is an ongoing
marketing Marketing is the act of acquiring, satisfying and retaining customers. It is one of the primary components of Business administration, business management and commerce. Marketing is usually conducted by the seller, typically a retailer or ma ...
promotion run by
PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase, New York, Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the f ...
since 1975. It is also the name of a cross country ski race at Giant's Ridge Ski Area in Biwabik, Minnesota, an event sponsored by Pepsi.


Method

The challenge originally took the form of a single blind taste test. At malls, shopping centers, and other public locations, a Pepsi representative set up a table with two white cups: one containing
Pepsi Pepsi is a Carbonated water, carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo which serves as its flagship product. In 2023, Pepsi was the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long ...
and one with
Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...
. Shoppers were encouraged to taste both colas and then select which drink they preferred. Then the representative revealed the two bottles so the taster can see whether they preferred Coke or Pepsi. The results of the test leaned toward a consensus that Pepsi was preferred by more Americans. The Pepsi Challenge has been featured in much of Pepsi's TV advertising.


History

The challenge launched in 1975, as part of the ongoing
Cola wars The Cola wars are the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually-targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their ...
between Pepsi and
The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It manufactures, sells and markets soft drinks including Coca-Cola, other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. Its stock is lis ...
. In his book '' Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking'' (2005), author
Malcolm Gladwell Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is a Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published eight books. He is also the host of the podcast ''Revisionist ...
presents evidence that suggests Pepsi's success over Coca-Cola in the "Pepsi Challenge" is a result of the flawed nature of the "sip test" method. His research shows that tasters will generally prefer the sweeter of two beverages based on a single sip, even if they prefer a less sweet beverage over the course of an entire can. Additionally, the challenge more often than not labeled the Pepsi cup with an "M" and the Coca-Cola cup with a "Q," suggesting letter preference may drive some of the results. Donald M. Kendall of Pepsi promoted the Pepsi Challenge. When the preference in blind tests is compared to tests wherein cups are labeled with arbitrary labels (e.g., S or L) or brand names, the ratings of preference change. Scientific findings do support a perceptible difference between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, but not between Pepsi and RC Cola. In his book ''Bad Habits'', humorist
Dave Barry David McAlister Barry (born July 3, 1947) is an American author and columnist who wrote a nationally Print syndication, syndicated humor column for the ''Miami Herald'' from 1983 to 2005. He has written numerous books of humor and parody, as we ...
describes the Pepsi challenge as, "Pepsi’s ongoing misguided attempt to convince the general public that Coke and Pepsi are not the same thing, which of course they are." In 2015, Pepsi re-launched the Pepsi Challenge on social media. As part of this year long promotion, Pepsi signed various celebrity ambassadors to advertise their product on their social media accounts under the
hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...
#PepsiChallenge. In 2025, Pepsi said that they were going to revive the Pepsi Challenge again, starting with
New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
for
Super Bowl LIX Super Bowl LIX was an American football championship game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2024 NFL season, 2024 season. In a rematch of Super Bowl LVII two years prior, the National Football Conf ...
. In March, they'll start a nationwide campaign in major cities like
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
Dallas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
and
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
. However, instead of the originals, the Challenge will include sugar-free variations of the two drinks: Pepsi Zero Sugar and Coca Cola Zero Sugar.


Contest

In 1981, Pepsi ran a "Pepsi Challenge Payoff" contest that would hand out a large prize to anyone who could gather Pepsi bottle caps that spelled out the word “Challenge".


See also

*
Cola Wars The Cola wars are the long-time rivalry between soft drink producers The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, who have engaged in mutually-targeted marketing campaigns for the direct competition between each company's product lines, especially their ...
* New Coke * Pepsi Cool Cans * Pepsi Stuff


References


Further reading

*Koenigs, M., Tranel, D. (2008). Prefrontal cortex damage abolishes brand-cued changes in cola preference. ''Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 3'', 1–6. *Pronko, N.H., Herman, D.T. (1950). Identification of cola beverages. IV. Postscript. ''Journal of Applied Psychology, 34'', 68–69. *{{cite journal , author=Woolfolk, ME , author2=Castellan, W , author3=Brooks, CI , title=Pepsi versus Coke: Labels, not tastes, prevail , journal=Psychological Reports , url=http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~lapd/dl/coke2.pdf , volume=52 , pages=185–186 , year=1983 , doi=10.2466/pr0.1983.52.1.185 , s2cid=147103073 , url-status=bot: unknown , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060914114727/http://www.psy.jhu.edu/~lapd/dl/coke2.pdf , archive-date=September 14, 2006 Cola PepsiCo advertising campaigns Advertising campaigns Metaphors referring to food and drink 1975 introductions Food rivalries