Dive Brief:
- Surge is back. The 1990s soda with a citrus-like taste is being revived by Coca-Cola after fans of the drink launched a Facebook campaign to bring back the drink.
- Surge was discontinued 12 years ago amid disappointing sales. But the memory of the soda has remained strong among a committed group of people who drank it during their youth.
- Coca-Cola says the new Surge will be made with the exact same recipe as before, and will be sold exclusively through Amazon.
Dive Insight:
Coca-Cola had high hopes for Surge. The plan was to use the greenish liquid to counter the rising sales of Mountain Dew. Fast forward a few years and Surge was gone, while Mountain Dew had become a major player in the soda world.
No one seems to think that Surge has the potential to be much of anything now. But Coca-Cola is willing to experiment with a low-cost model of digital and social media marketing and online-only sales.