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AP
Pepsi bottles get a makeover. Too lumpy?
Pepsi is rolling out a new shape for its 20-ounce bottle for the first time in about 17 years.
The new bottle has a contoured bottom half that appears easier to grip, and the wraparound label is shorter so that more of the drink is exposed. The change follows a number of splashy moves in the past year by PepsiCo to improve results for its namesake soda, including a multiyear deal to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show and a wide-ranging deal with pop star Beyonce.
PepsiCo Inc., based in Purchase, N.Y., has been working to revitalize the brand after losing market share to Coca-Cola Co. in recent years.
Andrea Foote, a PepsiCo spokeswoman, said the new 20-ounce bottle is part of the company's ongoing update of marketing and packaging materials for the cola. The single-serve bottles, which are widely sold in coolers at drugstores and other retailers, will begin rolling out in April. The new shape will also be used for the 16-ounce bottles, which aren't as common, as well as Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max and Pepsi Next.
Foote said it will take a year or two before the new bottles entirely replace the current bottles, which she says were introduced in 1996.
"The engineers have to go to all the plants and convert the lines," Foote said. The new bottles will first appear in the New York area, then roll out to Chicago, parts of California and Florida.
Coca-Cola, based in Atlanta, says its current 20-ounce contour bottle made its U.S. debut in 1993. Small changes were made over the years, such as making the surface easier to grip and shortening the neck of the bottle.
Despite PepsiCo's stepped up efforts, its beverage volume in North America declined by 4 percent last year. That included a 4 percent declined in carbonated soft drinks and a 3 percent decline in non-carbonated drinks, according to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
PepsiCo makes a wide range of products, including Frito-Lay chips, Gatorade, Quaker Oats and Tropicana. But it has long been defined by its namesake soda and its rivalry with Coca-Cola.
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I find nothing attractive about this. It looks as though it could more easily be tipped over as well.
That was my first thought - base too narrow/center of gravity too high.
Probably spent 10's of millions designing it as well...
I first thought of that as well. It looks like the bottle will be top heavy. It will then flip out of cup holders in a lot of cars when the car makes a turn. Happens all the time with the current bottles and I don't drive like a maniac. The only thing that seemed to help was making the center of gravity lower by drinking about a third of it. This new design will definitely topple. I don't see how they could have possibly tested this in a vehicle and said it was a good idea.
Not only is the bottom small but it is rounded. An engineering marvel to be sure.
Probably a cost savings project cleverly marketed as a breakthrough. This bottle likely uses less plastic.
It's a bottle! Are you often 'attracted' to bottles?
I knew if I went further in the story to read the comments that I was sure to find some really stupid ones. Alas, yours was the first I read!
Beoch from NY, maybe you are just too stupid to understand the context into which they used the word attracted. I am quite certain it was not sexual you "glass is half empty" MFer.
Richardharrow, how do you know it wasn't in a sexual context.
Ugly bottle is ugly. They can design a better bottle.
Drink a cup of water with a cup of sugar dissolved in it. The same thing.
The last time we had a major container redesign in the beverage industry, the geniuses at Coke made the 2L bottles too tall to fit in many fridge doors. You really have to wonder how these characters justify cashing their (surely large and generous) paychecks.
I like an easier grip on the bottom half. oh are we talking about a bottle. Never mind
Take that Mayor Bloomberg! STILL 20 oz and coming to a store near you.
His proposed ban never affected grocery items like this anyway, only restaurant servings.
Duh. It was a joke. "Coming to a business regulated by the health department" near you, just didn't flow, ya know?
Some people have the sense of humor of an old cold turd. Whaddaya gonna do?
PepsiCo has always been number 1 with there products. It always will be. Coca-Cola has 40% less sales world wide then PepsiCo. The numbers decline by the day for Coca-Cola.
Got any data to back that statment up? Given the fact that the bottle greatly resembles Coca-Cola's rocket bottel design, I would say that PepsiCo is worried about their marketshare in the cola market.
You know, Eric, looking at the two photos, you're absolutely right. Except for the dimensions, shape, contours and base, they do look alike.
o_O
LOL where do you get your info from? Coke Sales far beat Pepsi sales... just cause all they sell at FoodStamp mart in your hood is Newport and Pepsi doesn't mean everyone drinks it
You So Funny! Pepsh1t is #3 now. Pepsh1t is behind the always #1 Coca-Cola and the #2 Diet Coke. You'd have to add #2 and #3 together, to barely beat Coca-Cola in sales.
Pepsi, Now #3 Soft Drink, Launches ‘Social’ Vending Machines
Diet Coke bumps rival cola for #2, Coca-Cola Classic still #1
Also:
Flat sales send Pepsi to No. 3, behind Coke, Diet Coke
Too bad, so sad.
I remember glass bottles and bottle openers, those were the good old day. I also remember 8oz bottles.
Bubba, I remember 6 oz glass bottles of Coke! I thought I was really grown up when my mom let me get my own bottle and I did not have to share!
Kids are so obese now, 6 ounces is like one sip.
PepsiCo embraced bottled water and sports drinks much earlier than its rival. Pepsi's Aquafina is the No. 1 water brand, with Coke's Dasani trailing; in sports drinks, Pepsi's Gatorade owns 80 percent of the market while Coke's Powerade has 15 percent.
"Pepsi's been on fire," notes Robert van Brugge, beverage analyst with Sanford Bernstein. Over the past five years its stock has risen more than a third, while Coke's has sunk 30 percent. What Coke investors didn't envision was that an emerging preference for other soft beverages --water, sports drinks -- would fracture demand. Nor did they see that the business strengths that once applied to cola would take hold across a broadened soft drink and snack-food market -- a market that Pepsi, and not Coke, dominate.
Coke - 1.6 BILLION cases
Diet Coke - 927 Million cases
Pepsh1t - 892 Million cases
Your "beverage analyst" got it wrong when he said "(Pepsh1t's) on fire." Pepsh1ts losing ground. He should clarify his statement.
Apples to apples baby. Pepsh1t Loses. Why did Pepsh1tCo break out YUM! brands? Because BK stated "Coke Only" to their franchisees many years back. Said "We don't buy from McDonald's, we don't buy from (Pepsh1t.) We don't buy from our competitors." Coca-Cola doesn't own snack foods or fast-food establishments. Doesn't want to. Coke owns soft drinks. Always has, always will.
We did notice you have to say Pepsh1tCo to even try to make your claim viable. Anything to keep from being called 3rd, huh? Damn, truth hurts that much?
Pepsh1t will always play catch-up to Coca-Cola in the "cola wars."
Scuba, I'm sure the makers of Coke appreciate you arguing on their behalf. On a message board... Also, "Pepsh1t." How clever.
Frankly, don't care what shape the bottle is, I don't like the "caramel flavoring added" high fructose corn syrup sugar water that is known as Pepsi.
Funny thing is, as a kid I loved the stuff. Then again, I liked Pixie sticks, Count Chocula and Pebbles cereals too. Anything with sugar!!!! Never slept much though, wonder why?
I gave up on carbonated sugar water long long ago. Dentist said it was the best thing I ever did for my teeth. More important than brushing.
Scuba,
Here's some apples for ya:
Coca Cola Co. - Total Annual Sales 2012 - 48 billion and change.
PepsiCo Inc - Total Annual Sales 2012 - 65.5 billion
Maybe Coke sells more cola than Pepsi, but as a business, PepsiCo beats Coca Cola Co.
I want a Pepsi Perfect design bottle from "Back to the Future Part 2"
Exactly what I was thinking (and hoping for) when I saw the title too.
They could put it in a cardboard box and I would still buy it over Chokeacola, but I want the glass bottle back. That was the finest time of soft drink drinking!
That chubby little ice cold glass bottle with the styrofoam Pepsi wrapper. THE best. Ah, memories.
Kids, styrofoam is bad, imkay?
Who cares what it comes in it all ends up at moronic country-music festivals where the hick-stooges there pour it in solo cups mixed with jim beam anyway and the stupid plastic bottles just get thrown on the ground where later the idiot-mob crushed them into the soil chasing after kenny chesney's tour bus as its leaving their drunk assses behind and then six years later a corn-crop infused with plastic compounds sprouts up in that spot and twenty years after that the little nielson child who ate the corn when he was five years old on his parents ranch gets diagnosed with stomacch cancer and pepsi doesn't even give a f.
He's right. Butterflies cause tsunamis, too.
Sounds like you've been on Ken Kesey's tourbus.
The new design looks "destinctive," but it looks like it's upside down, top heavy! The grip contour should be in the middle because that's where most people hold the bottle.
yeah well a 12 ounce beer-bottle is perfectly-shaped to be held and used as a weapon but I don’t see you complaining about that so stop being so cynicla and just drink the damn crap or don’t and then live a healthy life but either way stop making such petty complaints.
Look who is making petty complaints
if youre referring to me dt8 then you're wrong because I'm not complaining in any way I'm just pointng out why this hypocrite above my comment is a complete moron and if he's really worried about the way things are shaped he should focus on a design that kills thousands of people a year in drunken-brawls rather than on a shape that his sugar-bloated hands havea hard time gripping. if you arent going to contribute anything then go back on your sports blog and talk about free-throw percentages you schmuck.
Yes I am referring to you. Show me some facts that back up your idiotic claim that thousands of people are killed every year by beer bottles. You can't
10 ounce bottles were the best. 12 ounces seems like just a tad too much and the stupid 8 ounce cans aren't enough.
yeah that's a real legitimate complaint you tool, why don’t you write to indra nooyi with this very useful suggesttion to her sugar-possioning empire and I'm sure that they'll implement these changes immediately since that would make you happy. If the biggest problem you have in your life is drinking 2 ounces too few or too many of this soda crap then your life must be pretty damn cushy you richer freakophobe and you should probably just go crawl back into your palace before the sun taints yourr perfectly untarnished skin you fraud.
Cool comment LitterHater. You're like one of those comedians that belittles people for fun. Do me! Do me!
I'm not belittling people, I'm belittling thhe culture of pampered and privilledged thinking like his that needs everything exactly right according to their senseless whims or else they throw huge hissy-fits like that fairy just did in his 2ounce-rant post.
"yeah that's a real legitimate complaint you tool"
"your life must be pretty damn cushy you richer freakophobe and you should probably just go crawl back into your palace before the sun taints yourr perfectly untarnished skin you fraud"
Yeah, that's not belittling at all.
LitterHater's gonna LitterHate.
Just the other day I was saying that I wish Pepsi would do something to the design of their 20 oz bottles because I keep dropping them all the time. That round, cylindrical shape just slips from my hand too easily. Thank god that they have come up with a design that more easily allows me to grip the bottle. AND to see more of my beverage at the same time with a smaller label. It's good to know that Pepsi is looking out for me.
The Nazi's drank Coca-Cola.
the only bottle design i can think of that actually makes people want to buy it is the iconic, classic coke glass bottle design. but for the most part i dont think people buy a drink because of the shape of the bottle. however, an ugly bottle design could easily turn people off from buying the drink, and this is an ugly bottle design.
If they are trying to indicate what's inside, I suggest using a 1 inch tube, put in a brown colored, semi-solid paste and let it swirl down from about 3 feet and end in a "plop."
If you don't know what that is, follow Rover around.
Pepsi has changed their branding at least 11 TIMES since 1898! Coca-cola? ZERO! They're still using the same logo and bottle shape they started out with in 1885.
Yeah, and lets all try to forget "New" Coke
I'm still convinced "New Coke" was a marketing ploy.
Sales of "Classic Coke" soared, before and after "new" Coke was introduced.
Yo LitterHater! Is it time for your medication? Are you having a bad day? Did you accidentally place your head up your azz this morning?
oldjim thanks for your great input on this article you jabroney but actually I don’t need any medications since I don’t drink this crap and therefore don’t suffer from diabities, high blood pressure, or the slow burning of my stomach lining that leads to ulcers and heightened harm when you're exposed to high levels of raditation due to the depeleted ozone layer which has been ravaged by the burning of pepsi's plastic genocide-bottles and the high-trasnportation costs of pumping this crap into underprvilledged inner-city neighborhoods for the better part of five decades. but yeah oldjim keep mkaing pointless comments that dont advance anyone's knowledge on the content of this article at all you cretin and make sure that you have your life alert tokken nearby next time you decide to guzzle down some of this sludge so paramedics can get there to shake their heads at your dumb asss as soon as possible.
And your moronic rants advance knowledge?
Waste of money. I doubt if you asked a thousand people whether the shape of the bottle influences whether they would drink Coke or Pepsi, 0 percent would say that it does. I'm guessing some 20-something marketing guru said that the current bottle looks old and boring and needs jazzed up to appeal to a younger crowd, and this is what we get.
Maybe I drink so much of it that I notice more than others, but making the cap shorter to save a few pennies was a mistake as well. The cap is harder to hold onto when you are trying to put it back on the bottle,and I am constantly dropping it. Then again, I only drink Diet Pepsi, so they could sell it in boxes like cheap wine and I would buy it. Thats not a bad idea...
I don't want to steal the thunder from LitterHater, but you should really think of something more stressful in your life than the near Herculean task of replacing a bottle cap to complain about.
By the way Hater, do you just hate random trash, or do you hate puppies, too?
I hate anything that detracts value from the ecosystem and needlessly harms the environment in a malicious and irresponsible manner and pepsi fits this bill quite perfectly with their astronaumical output of CO2 and other carcinogens in the manufactueruing of their dark brown filth and in the way that they dont advocate proper recycling of the environemntal-killers that they release into the world one bottle at a time. And yeah you're right about this douchenoggin's cap-issue, is taht really a big enough concern in your life that you had to come online and complain about it? I hope that next time you're being careless (which sounds like all of the time) you drop the cap on the sidewalk and trip over it right into a sweedish supermodel who's with her mixed maritial arts-fighting boyfriend who doesnt take kindly to people fondling his one and only and then maybe you'll have some other things to worry about for a change then the shape and size of a f'ing plastic cap.
By making your moronic rants you are using electricity which when made pumps out CO2 which harms the environment so I guess you hate yourself. Go take your meds and go back under your rock.
dt8 it's like you havea pension for being wrong to bad there's not a game show where you can get paid for showcasing that talent, well unless you count the biggest loser as a game show that is in which case you should sign up immediately casue you're a sure-win. the amount of electricity that the desktop i'm using does not change the moment that i press post so whether i point out facts on here or not there's no environmental impact either way and since my network is powered by wind-turbines the only negative effect that this computer had on the environemnt happened when it was manufactured and then transported here which i can do nothing about now either way so stop making useless and irrelevant complaints about nothing and go practice your plinko-strategy some more you canned-chump.
Litter: It's penchant not pension. I guess vocab isnt your strong suit.
bob it's a article about pepsi and environmental-costs not spelling and grammar you douche but I guess staying on topic isnt what your good at either huh?
Sorry but your network is not powered by wind turbines 24/7 and I guess you ride a bike or walk every place as well.
LitterHater -- I understood your comment OK but I have read many comments where the spelling and grammar were so bad the message was completely obliterated. Some people have a passion for clear and concise language, many don't.
Why don't they make a clear cola product? That would be marketing genius.
probably because then they wouldn’t be able to add the colouring-dye into their execution-cocktail that they use to limit the population and therefore their main corporate goals would be unachievable.
Oooh, I remember Crystal Pepsi! And I don't care what anyone says, I could taste the difference.
No what you probably tasted was the errant drops of child-labor sweat that accidentally got infused into the toxic-mix during its production, tastes like shattered dreams and broken-promises huh? Or a.k.a, tastes like pepsi doesn’t it?
I LOVE LitterHater. My favorite poster EVER!
It just keeps getting better.
yeah too bad you never loved the people who are actually in your life the same way which is why you're now a lonely and divorced philistine who searches the internet for approval just to realize that at the end of the day that's not worth anything either and you'll never have another chance at happniess ever again unless you stop distorting your brain with desensitizing chemicals like is found in pepsi prodducts and step outside of the interwebb in an attempt to connect with your fellow man you tubster.
Why not just drink Club Soda, the kick is the same and it has zero calories.
They just found a way to make it cheaper is all...
Hey Litter....maybe I'll change my name to Jabroney Jim!
Tell me, cantankerous one, with your disdain for the product why did you even read the article? Did it simply give you the opportunity to attack another group of people? I bet that's your primary source of pleasure each day. Are you masturbating while you do it?
I read the article because I believe that everyone should be given a chance for redemption and I thoguht that just maybe pepsi was changing their design to be less of an environmental cancer and to start a more econologically-friendly campaign and overall change in their business-model. obviously that didnt happen though so i'm just commenting on why i believe that these changes are meaningless and trying to squash the ignorance that i see being propogated here by smarmy nomes like you so that other people trying to learn more about these issues arent given rediculous and unfounded misdirection becuase you and people like you are so irresponsbile that it's gotten to the level that you dont even realize that you're poassing it on to unsuspecting bystanders and creating a further cycle of idiocy and mental-deepfrying you phlem-dragon.
Hey Litter.....Jabroney Jim, the Phlem-Dragon here again!
Take your medication now before you hurt youself! Then work on your sentence structure.
I've got to admit that as I get older, I get a lot more phlegm in the morning.
that's probably just a build-up of harmful chemicals that are an input to pepsi's reccipe that your tonsils are trying to catch and expel from your body but since you've been drowning them in this disease-accelerant for years now they're probably just getting pissed and expellling whatever junk they feell ike in an ttempt to close your throat for good, maybe you should listen to them and save yourself you barbariann.
Plus, I drink too much red wine.
what you need to get light-headed now in order to feel balanced anymore after the mess you've made of your own life you turd-burglar? You advance the culture of complacency and foolhardiness everyday that you fail to combat it moron.
Oh yeah, the wine makes the evenings much better, for sure. Complacency naturally comes as you get older. The combination of wearing down and the realization of how much you can actually change and impact in society will refocus your efforts to that which you can actually affect.
Every time you purchase something, you are making an economic vote, for sure.
LitterHater, you said:
Can you please explain to me how you're squashing ignorance about this topic when all you're really doing is attacking people and calling them names while making assumptions about their lives and they way they live when you don't even know them? Squashing ignorance would be actually contributing data, facts, statistics and information that would prove a point. You really have no point except for the fact that maybe, just maybe, you're a "green," and I mean "go green" enthusiast who is trying to instill your ideas of what is "right & correct" in life onto others. Please, unless you actually have something of substance and importance to add to the conversation stop posting. It's extremely disrespectful and rude, especially the name calling. Only children and extremely immature adults result to name calling.
How bout if pepsi actually put pepsi back in glass bottles. It had the best taste. I never buy pepsi in a plastic "bottle". Taste well like plastic to me. Cans is all I get but glass bottles would be fantastic!!
The glass bottles were great weren't they? And it seems to me they held the carbonation better.
Completely agree - Coke and Pepsi both tasted better out of glass bottles.
Still available in some rural areas. Travel up to PEI every year and just until the last couple of years the bottles were still all glass. Can still get them occasionally as "special" items, but they're definitely disappearing fast.
If you leave in an area w/ a sizable Hispanic population you can find the glass Coke & Pepsi bottles, even in the bigger chain convenience stores. They're all made in Mexico, though, if that matters to you.
No Mexican pepsi for me bottle or not.......
And the Mexican made soda contains sugar NOT high fructose corn syrup.
The Coke and Pepsi made in Mexico is made with real sugar, not High Fructose Corn syrup. In Mexico, they don't have the farm cartels bribing their government to keep import tariffs high on sugar like they do in the US. The world market price of sugar is actually at least half the cost of HFCS, but hey, at least ADM is making a profit, right?
Bizzer,That's where we buy ours in California.The Coca Cola bottling plant has been in Mexico for decades.And it is still made with sugar and not high fructose corn syrup.The Pepsi made in Mexico is also made with sugar.Dublin,Texas home of Dr.Pepper stopped selling their product in the glass bottle made with sugar a couple of years ago.My sister brought us some and it tasted just like in the good old days.
One to Two years to roll out.
Translate - we can save money, but we want to make sure we don't pull a "New Coke" and roll out something nationwide that really backfires on us.
I saw Coke-inspired slimmer Pepsi bottles in North Carolina stores back in 2011. I was wondering when I'd see them in stores elsewhere. Apparently that's been abandoned for something (marginally) different.
You don't want to hold the bottle by he bottom because the heat from your hand will cause the pop to get warm faster. Hence, the longneck. You hold the beer bottle by the thin neck.
how long does it take you to drink 12 ounces that this issue would everr even come up? Seriosuly you might be the most petty of all the dwarves living in snow white's pampered ivroy-tower you goon.
So, does this use more plastic or less plastic than the previous design?
Indeed, a good question. Based on recent changes to water bottles (like Ice Mountain), this change appears to use less plastic. We could quantify it by weighing an empty of each type. I would do that, but would have to pour the soda down the drain.
Diet soda actually makes a pretty good drain cleaner - if there is still some flow. I use generic diet, caffeine-free.
mailman8,Coke left in the toilet bowl overnight takes out the hard water rings.It also makes an excellent battery cable and post cleaner.
The new bottle looks OK. I doubt anyone will decide to change their drinking preferences simply because of the new bottle design. A few might for the novelty of it, but that kind of product attention doesn't last long. Cola products in general continue to struggle against an ever-expanding field of competitors (coffee products, juices, teas, flavored waters, Red Bull, etc., etc. -- stuff that didn't exist or have the same market presence as 20 years ago).
"Pepsi's been on fire," notes Robert van Brugge, beverage analyst with Sanford Bernstein. Over the past five years its stock has risen more than a third, while Coke's has sunk 30 percent. What Coke investors didn't envision was that an emerging preference for other soft beverages --water, sports drinks -- would fracture demand. Nor did they see that the business strengths that once applied to cola would take hold across a broadened soft drink and snack-food market -- a market that Pepsi, and not Coke, dominate.
Nice shilling - you be a Pepsi PR marketer?
In 2008 I could by 12 12oz cans for $2.25 and we would buy 8 cases a month, today an 18 cans cases is 5.99 on sale, so we just stop buying it. Overpriced, I have found out you can live with out Coke and Pepsi.
If you can't afford it at 33¢ per can you probably shouldn't have been buying it at 19¢ per can either.
You need the label within the grip area to keep the bottle's 'sweat' from getting on your hand ... surely the grip area isn't designed to be near the bottom.
Hiring Beyonce was a huge mistake.