Diet Coke, also known as Coca-Cola Light, Diet Coca-Cola, or Coca-Cola Light Taste, is a sugar-free and low-calorie diet soda produced and distributed by the Coca-Cola Company. It is a cola drink containing artificial sweeteners, primarily aspartame, instead of sugar. Diet Coke was the first new brand since the Coca-Cola Company's creation in 1886 to use the Coca-Cola trademark. Unveiled on July 8, 1982, it became wildly successful and a cultural status symbol to some following its launch.
The Genesis of Diet Coke
The Coca-Cola Company introduced Diet Coke with great fanfare in 1982, following another low-calorie cola called Tab that was produced in 1963. The company had a long-standing policy to use the Coca-Cola name only on its flagship cola, and so its diet cola was named Tab when it was released in 1963. Diet beverages began in earnest with the 1949 launch of La Casera (also known as Gaseosa) in Madrid, Spain using cyclamate. This was followed by the development of No-Cal ginger ale in 1952. Although Tab was successful in the growing weight and calorie-conscious market, its name referring to “keeping a tab on your weight,” the company’s field tests and research on consumer attitudes indicated that sales were limited by its lack of the Coca-Cola trademark. Its rival Pepsi had no such qualms, and after the long-term success of its sugar-free Diet Pepsi (launched in 1964) became clear, Coca-Cola decided to develop a competing sugar-free brand under the Coca-Cola name that could be marketed more easily than Tab.
Recognizing Americans' growing desire for weight loss, Kirsch began marketing No-Cal to the general public, particularly to women. In 1958, Royal Crown Cola introduced their own cyclamate and saccharin sweetened dietetic beverage, Diet Rite. Following highly successful trials in Chicago and North Carolina, RC began marketing Diet Rite nationwide for the general public in 1962. The following year (1963), Dr Pepper released a diet version of its own soft drink, "Dietetic Dr. Pepper" (later renamed to Sugar Free Dr. Pepper, then Diet Dr. Pepper), although it sold slowly due to the misconception that it was meant solely for diabetic consumption. The same year, The Coca-Cola Company joined the diet soft drink market with Tab, followed up by Pepsi with Patio Diet Cola (shortly renamed to Diet Pepsi).
The company began developing a different diet cola to replace Tab from 1975, which would have a renewed brand image and respond to the demand for a diet drink with better taste. From the beginning, Tab’s story has been one of perseverance. The brand survived initial low sales, the artificial sweetener scares of the 1960s and 1970s, lukewarm enthusiasm for the product at the corporate level and intermittent consumer availability to become - for a brief period - the most popular diet soda in America.
The Sweetener Saga
The use of artificial sweeteners as a cheaper substitute for cane sugar saved the company around $100 million a year. The company president, Roberto Goizueta, had decided that high-fructose corn syrup would be used in regular Coke by 1980, suppressing the company’s internal tensions between preserving and altering the original formula. In 1983 the company began using aspartame as the artificial sweetener for Diet Coke, initially blending it with saccharin.
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Artificial sweeteners were riding high in the 1960s as Americans wanted to enjoy their sweets without paying the caloric price. In 1969, the Food and Drug Administration banned the sweetener cyclamate after lab studies indicated that large doses of the sweetener led to bladder cancer in animals. While Tab contained two artificial sweeteners - saccharin and cyclamate - cyclamate was the more important of the two. Saccharin is 300 to 400 times sweeter than sugar, but in high concentrations it gives products a bitter, metallic aftertaste. After the cyclamate ban, Tab was forced to reformulate and ended up deciding to use saccharine as its primary sweetener.
Several different sweeteners are used to replace sugar in low-calorie diet beverages. The ideal goal in artificial sweetening is to replicate the exact taste and texture effects of sucrose with one or more non-caloric sweeteners. Aspartame, commonly known by the brand name NutraSweet, is one of the most commonly used artificial sweeteners. The 1982 introduction of aspartame-sweetened Diet Coke accelerated this trend. Neotame and advantame are further derivatives of aspartame. They received FDA approval in 1998 and 2014 respectively. Due to its high efficiency (20,000 times sucrose) which enables use of minute quantities for sweetening, advantame has the advantage of being safe to consume for individuals with phenylketonuria. The most commonly distributed version of Diet Coke uses aspartame as a sweetener. As one of the most intensively scrutinized food additives, the safety of aspartame has been studied since its discovery. Aspartame has been deemed safe for human consumption by the regulatory agencies of many countries. Recently, two other sweeteners have been used with increasing frequency: sucralose (marketed as Splenda) and acesulfame potassium ("Sunett" or "Ace K").
In 2005, under pressure from retailer Walmart (which was impressed with the over-the-counter popularity of Splenda sweetener), the company released a new formulation called "Diet Coke sweetened with Splenda". Sucralose and acesulfame potassium replaced aspartame in this version.
Contractual Battles and Brand Identity
Moving away from the sugar market allowed the company to establish Diet Coke as a new product that called for bottlers, who purchased the syrup formula from the company, to sign new contracts. The previous agreement had only specified concentrates containing sugar, and coke executives held that neither Diet Coke nor regular Coke containing corn syrup applied to them. Amendments in the contract offered by Coca-Cola would allow the company to gain control over syrup prices. Despite protests from bottlers, the company won the legal battle in 1989 and Diet Coke was named as a new brand, with new ingredients and new contracts.
For many years, the brand name was written and marketed as diet Coke - with a lowercase “d” - to reinforce the positioning of the product. Their reasoning: Diet with an uppercase “D” was a noun, and the use of a noun changed the name of the trademark.
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Marketing and Consumer Perception
The Coca-Cola Company was founded in 1886 by an American pharmacist, and began its international distribution in the 1920s. Since then, Coca-Cola has expanded its operations to more than 200 countries worldwide. Diet Coke (and rivals like Diet Pepsi) have capitalized on the markets of people who require low sugar regimens, such as diabetics and people concerned with calorie intake.
Coca-Cola used the slogan "Just for the taste of it!" for almost all years between its 1982 launch and at least 1997, and has been accompanied with an iconic jingle. A version of the song was also performed by Elton John and Paula Abdul in an ad at Super Bowl XXIV. A famous advert of the brand was "Diet Coke Break" in 1994 featuring Lucky Vanous, from which point on the brand became targeted primarily at women. The drink's all-silver can color, which has been in use since 1997, has been considered iconic and a distinctive design.
Diet Coke has had a significant cultural impact, including links with healthiness and wellness but also negative connotations in regards to body image. It has achieved high popularity in certain circles with loyal fans, including in popular culture. Victoria Beckham, Dua Lipa and Bill Clinton are known fans of the drink, and Donald Trump notably has a dedicated button for Diet Coke in his presidential office. The drink has been known to be the choice of "it girls", and has been popular in the fashion scene.
As the positioning began to come together, Farrell built a financial model to demonstrate the link between the brand’s marketing activities and bottler revenue. “John’s model made us highly credible,” Carew said. As Farrell explains it, “The economics of Diet Coke were so unbelievably simple because it didn’t have any sugar. When you remove the second-highest cost item after aluminum cans, you can make the numbers trend pretty well. The financial model gave Coca‑Cola USA the confidence to invest in marketing the brand. “We positioned it as a great-tasting soft drink that happens to have one calorie, rather than as a diet drink that tastes great,” Norcia explains. The core Diet Coke demographic was baby boomers who were getting 20 years older and 20 pounds heavier. “We had an in-depth knowledge of our target consumer and the issue of weight in America,” Carew said.
Diet Coke existed only on paper for months, but mock-ups of the initial packaging graphics gave the brand a visual identity. The team built a makeshift grocery aisle inside an abandoned syrup plant next to company headquarters to see how the designs would look on the shelf alongside other brands. “At that point, it all became very real,” Bell said.
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Launch and Immediate Success
Six lead markets - New York, Jacksonville (Fla.), San Diego, Minneapolis, Denver and Baltimore - were selected to debut the brand. “By rolling out slowly, we hoped to spark a bit of friendly competition among markets,” Carew explains. “For example, we wanted Los Angeles to keep an eye on what New York was doing. Coca‑Cola held a high-profile press conference in New York City on July 8, 1982. A week later - before the first case had been delivered - 75 percent of the area population was aware of Diet Coke’s imminent introduction. Diet Coke’s first TV commercial had to define the character of the brand and make a bold statement. By the end of 1983, Diet Coke was the No. and the top soft drink brand among women.
Contrary to the company’s original fears, Diet Coke was an immediate hit. Even though the flavor of the new beverage was not a carbon copy of the sugar-sweetened version, customers took to it. And the main victim of Diet Coke was not the original Coke, but Tab.
International Variations and Slogans
Since its inception in 1982, Diet Coke has been the product name in Coca-Cola's home country the United States and a number of other countries. Other countries, such as Germany (then West Germany) have used the Coca-Cola Light name since the beginning. This name is now most common in most of Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. In many countries including Italy, Mexico and the Netherlands, the product originally launched in 1983-84 under the "Diet Coke" name, but would later switch to the "Coca-Cola Light" name in the early 1990s.
Coca-Cola has used various slogans throughout Diet Coke's history to advertize the product, both in the United States and internationally. From 2010 to 2014, "Stay Extraordinary" was the main slogan in use. Coca-Cola launched the "You're on" campaign in 2014. However it was soon dropped after it was mocked, due to its unintentional drug reference (cocaine). Later that year, "Get a Taste" was introduced, asking the question "what if life tasted this good?". This campaign lasted until 2018. In 2018, Diet Coke launched the "Because I can." slogan and campaign at the same time as a major rebrand and the addition of new flavors.
Ingredients and Flavors
The ingredients and taste of Diet Coke has slight variations between different bottling countries. was sweetened with aspartame, an artificial sweetener that became available in the United States in 1983. Early on, to reduce costs, this was blended with saccharin. After Diet Rite cola advertised its 100 percent use of aspartame, and the manufacturer of NutraSweet (then G. D. Searle & Company) warned that the NutraSweet trademark would not be made available to a blend of sweeteners, Coca-Cola switched the formula to 100 percent aspartame. Other than sweeteners, Diet Coke differs from Coca-Cola by having a higher amount (approximately 33% more) of caffeine.
Over the years, Diet Coke has been released in several flavors:
- The original variety.
- Diet Coke without the caffeine.
- Diet Coke with a vanilla flavor.
- A version that was sweetened with Splenda.
- Diet Coke with Splenda contained 2.83 mgs of caffeine per fluid ounce.
- Diet Coke with a combination of Ginger and Lime flavors.
- Diet Coke with a Mango flavor.
- Diet Coke with a Blood Orange flavor, similar to Coca-Cola Light Sango.
- Diet Coke with a combination of Ginger and Lemon flavors.
Health Concerns and Controversies
Diet sodas (also known as sugar-free sodas, zero-calorie sodas, low-calorie sodas or zero-sugar sodas) are soft drinks which contain little or no sugar and/or calories. Though artificial sweeteners had been known since the discovery of saccharin in 1878.
Nevertheless, since its inception the drink has been scrutinised by some with claims that it is harmful in various ways, such as that it can dehydrate and increase food cravings. There are several possible explanations for the counter-intuitive weight gain and increased diabetes risk with the so called diet sodas. According to the World Health Organization, aspartame, a sweetener found in diet drinks and other food items, may be a potential cancer-causing agent.
Reduced-Calorie Versions
In an effort to profit on the surging popularity of low-carbohydrate diets, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo both released reduced-calorie versions of their flagship colas in 2004. The products contain approximately half the sugar of the regular versions. The Pepsi variant, Pepsi Edge, is sweetened with sucralose and corn syrup. The sweetening of the Coca-Cola variant, Coca-Cola C2, is a combination of corn syrup, aspartame, acesulfame potassium and sucralose. Pepsi discontinued Edge in 2005, citing lackluster sales. Coca-Cola soon followed suit. Half of the sugar of a can of regular cola still exceeds the daily sugar allowance of some popular low-carbohydrate diets.
Consumption Trends
According to a study by the National Center for Health Statistics, about one-fifth of the US population ages 2 years and over consumed diet drinks on a given day in 2009‒2010, and 11% consumed 16 fluid oz. of diet drinks or more. Overall, the percentage consuming diet drinks was higher among females compared with males. The percentage consuming diet drinks was similar for females and males at all ages except among 12- to 19-year-olds, where a higher percentage of females than males consumed diet drinks. A higher percentage of non-Hispanic white people consumed diet drinks compared with non-Hispanic black and Hispanic people.