Coke’s Surge success a blast from the past
Nostalgia wins, apparently: Coke’s revival of Surge was met with enthusiasm. The cans of soda sold out after only a few hours.
Ever since people started recognizing the whole obesity epidemic and cutting out unnecessary fats and sugars, the soda (or pop, if you prefer) industry has taken a hit.
It’s become a big challenge for brands like Coke and Pepsi to stay relevant when everyone knows that drinking too much of that sweet, sweet nectar will render your pants ill fitting.
What to do?
If you’re Coke, you turn to good ol’ 90s nostalgia. The decade gave us more than the Clintons, baggy fashions and grunge music. It also gave us Surge, a sugar- and caffeine-packed carbonated beverage that was essentially the Coca-Cola Company’s one-upping of Mountain Dew.
It was popular among college students and also Web developers during the rise (and, presumably, fall) of the dot-com era. It wasn’t popular enough, though, as Surge debuted in 1996 and was discontinued in 2002.
It’s still popular among a hardcore group of fans, though. A Facebook group of 144,165 people have contributed to “The Surge Movement,” which sought to convince Coke to bring back the soda. It worked: Coke brought back Surge as part of its effort to boost its e-commerce efforts Monday.
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