marketing goes wild

[cellio]

"Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper". That's a lot of adjectives. The coworker who was holding it wondered if it comes in caffeine-free. (He also made the most spectacular face when he tasted it.)

Doesn't Dr. Pepper already have some cherry flavoring by definition? That's what made it different from Coke originally, right? (Which raises the question of the difference between Dr. Pepper and Cherry Coke. I rarely drink either, so I can't speak to that.)

Comments

[ironangel]

I think Dr. Pepper has prune flavoring, IIRC.

I used to refer to smoking Marlboro ultra-light 100s as smoking adjectives. This sounds like drinking adjectives!

[profane-stencil.livejournal.com]

"The formula for Dr Pepper is proprietary, but prune juice is definitely not one of the ingredients." (http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20000621.html) But does it have prune flavoring?

[galiana-db.livejournal.com]

Actually, Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper than the straight diet kind does. You can't taste the cherry or vanilla really - it all sort of blends.

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Dr. Pepper was always my favorite soft drink (well, "pop," actually :-D), but I never liked the diet version. Now that I'm living La Vida Locarb, I can't drink the high octane stuff any more, and decided to try the diet cherry vanilla Dr. P. I really, really like it--I hope they don't discontinue it....

[galiana-db.livejournal.com]

Yeah. A good friend of mine is also living La Vida Locarb (very nice, by the way - I might have to share that with him) and introduced me to dcvdp. I must say, even though I don't do low-carb, I actually like it better than the normal stuff. Now, if only they could make a decent diet Mountain Dew, I could actually do Atkins. :)

[cellio]

Dr. Pepper was always my favorite soft drink (well, "pop," actually :-D), but I never liked the diet version.

Ditto.

Thanks for the tip about the diet adjective-loaded Dr. Pepper; I'll give that a try.

[zare-k.livejournal.com]

Also from the annals of soft drink marketing:

There is a billboard near my house that shows what looks like spongepainted figures of a robot, a raindrop, and maybe a person holding hands with something, captioned with the slogan ONEIFY. "Oh-nay-fee? What the heck is ohnayfee, and what does it have to do with robots?" It took me a while to notice the Pepsi One can icon down in the corner. I assume that ONEIFY is pronounced won-ih-fy but I'm frankly not sure. I find the whole thing very odd.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Diet Dr Pepper (note: there is no period in the brand name) rocks. Even the decaf kind is pretty good. I'm a little scared to try the adjective-laden new kind, though.

[cellio]

(note: there is no period in the brand name)

Oh thanks. I hadn't noticed that.

[alfiechat.livejournal.com]

Had a sample given to me at Walmart a few weeks ago. It was utterly vile. Dave seems to like it though. Go figure...

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I like regular *and* diet Dr Pepper, but *not* the Diet Cherry Vanilla sort. I guess my taste buds just don't react the same way... but then again, I've known for years that I am not the target demographic for pretty much *ANYTHING*.

Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola are two completely different soft drinks and have never been related, or even owned by the same company. The flavor formulae are similar in concept, and both certainly use cola as one of the flavorings, but beyond that there's little or nothing in common.

Mid-1980s Cherry Coke seems to have been an attempt to cut in on the Dr Pepper fans; the 1989/90 and later forumlas taste MUCH heavier on the cherry/sweet side to me, so I don't drink it anymore.

[cellio]

Dr Pepper and Coca-Cola are two completely different soft drinks and have never been related, or even owned by the same company.

Oh, ok. I thought that after Coke failed to knock Dr Pepper out with Cherry Coke they'd turned around and bought them. I'll admit that this impression comes largely from grocery stores (shelf placement and pricing policies), so it's open to error.

I like Dr Pepper, Cherry Coke (well, did back then; haven't tasted it recently), and both diet and regular Vanilla Cokes. And I like cherry and vanilla together in other contexts (yogurt). I'm just not sure that cherry, vanilla, cola, the extra flavoring from Dr Pepper, and Nutrisweet all go together. Curiosity may cause me to find out. (I pretty much don't drink sugared pop any more -- it has to be really really special, like a good ginger beer.)

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I thought that after Coke failed to knock Dr Pepper out with Cherry Coke they'd turned around and bought them. I'll admit that this impression comes largely from grocery stores (shelf placement and pricing policies)

Ah, but you see, around here, most people think Dr Pepper is a *Pepsi* product... for exactly the same reasons.

In the early 90s, both Coke and Pepsi tried to buy out the next rung down... RC, Dr Pepper, and 7-Up. So those three ended up merging together as a defensive measure. I think they also made an deal with Cadbury/Canada Dry to market those soft drinks in the USA as well.

But each soft drink gets its shelf placement and pricing as a result of who is BOTTLING it in the local area. The Pepsi plant just up the road has an agreement with DrPepper/7Up to bottle Dr Pepper. This is the plant that serves most of Northern Virginia east of Dulles Airport. They do NOT bottle 7-Up; that is bottled by Potomac Beverage, which also bottles Canada Dry, A&W and the local "Rock Creek" line.

In most of Pennsylvania, Dr Pepper is bottled by Coke plants.

Here's a weird one: Just west of here, Loudoun County and the Shenendoah Valley get their Pepsi products from a different wholesaler. And Mountain Dew, while it *is* a Pepsi product, got its bottling subcontracted out to the place that also does Dr Pepper out there. So if I go up to Sterling or Leesburg and I buy Mountain Dew, the cap says "Royal Crown Bottling of Winchester VA." A Pepsi product from a non-Pepsi plant! Go figure.

If you end up liking the Highly Adjectivized Dr Pepper, I won't complain -- it's our current Queen's favorite soft drink, and she's cool. Nobody is stupid for liking it; it just doesn't agree with *my* tastebuds. I'll stick to the normal Diet DrP, which is my favorite form of caffeine-with-fizz.

[madfilkentist]

I like Dr. Pepper. I like Diet Dr. Pepper. I like Vanilla Coke, Diet Coke, and Diet Vanilla Coke.

But I can't stand Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.