Don't Back Down

We hardly knew ye. Apparently, anyway, because the Coca-Cola company has decided to phase out Vanilla Coke by the end of 2005.

I'm not surprised that it's happening, only that it has taken so long for something like this to happen on a larger product line. I mean we see flavors come and go, but typically they are smaller lines that hardly made a ripple. Vanilla Coke, on the other hand, was introduced with a huge amount of advertising.

Apparently it didn't work, and the Vanilla line is skipping town, along with Diet Coke with Lemon. I think it would be an interesting exercise to see more of this. While I appreciate the idea to appeal to every market niche, the fragmenting it has done is incredible, with just a small sliver of sales going to any one such speciality beverage. There has to be a trade-off between such a strategy and actually making any money.

According to Douglas Gresham, stepson of C. S. Lewis, the clearest image of Lewis' Christianity came one day when a beggar asked for some change. Lewis dug into his pockets and gave the beggar all that he had. The person with them (perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien) suggested that the beggar would just spend it on drink, and that Lewis' effort was wasted. Jack's response to his companion? "Well if I had kept it, I would have only spent it on drink." Heh. (via, thanks)