Pepsi (stylized in lowercase as pepsi, formerly stylized in uppercase as PEPSI) is a
carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by
PepsiCo. Created and developed in 1898 and introduced as "Brad's Drink", it was later renamed as Pepsi-Cola on June 16, 1903.
Pepsi was first introduced as "Brad's Drink" in
New Bern, North Carolina,
United States, in 1898 by
Caleb Bradham, who made it at his home where the drink was sold. It was later labeled Pepsi Cola, named after the digestive enzyme
pepsin and
kola nuts used in the recipe. Bradham sought to create a fountain drink that was delicious and would aid in digestion and boost energy.
In 1903, Bradham moved the bottling of Pepsi-Cola from his drugstore to a rented warehouse. That year, Bradham sold 7,968 gallons of
syrup. The next year, Pepsi was sold in six-ounce bottles, and sales increased to 19,848 gallons. In 1909, automobile race pioneer
Barney Oldfield was the first celebrity to endorse Pepsi-Cola, describing it as "A bully drink...refreshing, invigorating, a fine bracer before a race." The advertising theme "Delicious and Healthful" was then used over the next two decades. In 1926, Pepsi received its first logo redesign since the original design of 1905. In 1929, the logo was changed again.
In 1931, at the depth of the
Great Depression, the Pepsi-Cola Company entered bankruptcy - in large part due to financial losses incurred by speculating on wildly fluctuating sugar prices as a result of
World War I. Assets were sold and Roy C. Megargel bought the Pepsi trademark.Eight years later, the company went bankrupt again. Pepsi's assets were then purchased by
Charles Guth, the President of Loft Inc. Loft was a candy manufacturer with retail stores that contained soda fountains. He sought to replace
Coca-Cola at his stores' fountains after Coke refused to give him a discount on syrup. Guth then had Loft's chemists reformulate the Pepsi-Cola syrup formula.
On three separate occasions between 1922 and 1933, the Coca-Cola Company was offered the opportunity to purchase the Pepsi-Cola company and it declined on each occasion.
Pepsi-Cola trademark
The original trademark application for Pepsi-Cola was filed on September 23, 1902 with registration approved on June 16, 1903. In the application's statement, Caleb Bradham describes the trademark as an, "arbitrary hyphenated word "PEPSI-COLA," and indicated that the mark was in continuous use for his business since August 1, 1901. The Pepsi-Cola's description is a flavoring-syrup for soda water. The trademark expired on April 15, 1994.
A second Pepsi-Cola trademark is on record with the USPTO. The application date submitted by Caleb Bradham for the second trademark is Saturday, April 15, 1905 with the successful registration date of April 15, 1906, over three years after the original date. Curiously, in this application, Caleb Bradham states that the trademark had been continuously used in his business "and those from whom title is derived since in the 1905 application the description submitted to the USPTO was for a tonic beverage. The federal status for the 1905 trademark is registered and renewed and is owned by
Pepsico, Inc. of
Purchase, New York.
Maketing
From the 1930s through the late 1950s, "Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot" was the most commonly used slogan in the days of old radio, classic motion pictures, and later television. Its jingle (conceived in the days when Pepsi cost only five cents) was used in many different forms with different lyrics.
With the rise of radio, Pepsi utilized the services of a young, up-and-coming actress named
Polly Bergen to promote products, oftentimes lending her singing talents to the classic "...Hits The Spot" jingle.
Through the intervening decades, there have been many different Pepsi theme songs sung on television by a variety of artists, from
Joanie Summers to
The Jacksons to
Britney Spears. (See
Slogans)
In 1975, Pepsi introduced the
Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign where PepsiCo set up a blind tasting between Pepsi-Cola and rival Coca-Cola. During these blind taste tests the majority of participants picked Pepsi as the better tasting of the two soft drinks. PepsiCo took great advantage of the campaign with
television commercials reporting the results to the public.
In 1976 Pepsi, RKO Bottlers in Toledo, Ohio hired the first female Pepsi salesperson, Denise Muck, to coincide with the United States bicentennial celebration.
In 1996, PepsiCo launched the highly successful
Pepsi Stuff marketing strategy. By 2002, the strategy was cited by Promo Magazine as one of 16 "Ageless Wonders" that "helped redefine promotion marketing."
In 2007, PepsiCo redesigned their cans for the fourteenth time, and for the first time, included more than thirty different backgrounds on each can, introducing a new background every three weeks.One of their background designs includes a string of repetitive numbers, "73774". This is a numerical expression from a telephone keypad of the word "Pepsi."
In late 2008, Pepsi overhauled their entire brand, simultaneously introducing a new logo and a
minimalist label design. The redesign was comparable to Coca-Cola's earlier simplification of their can and bottle designs. Also in 2008 Pepsi teamed up with Google/YouTube to produce the first daily entertainment show on Youtube, Poptub. This daily show deals with pop culture, internet viral videos, and celebrity gossip. Poptub is updated daily from Pepsi.
In 2009, "Bring Home the Cup," changed to "Team Up and Bring Home the Cup." The new installment of the campaign asks for team involvement and an advocate to submit content on behalf of their team for the chance to have the
Stanley Cup delivered to the team's hometown by
Mark Messier.
Pepsi has official sponsorship deals with three of the four major North American professional sports leagues: the
National Football League,
National Hockey League and
Major League Baseball. Pepsi also sponsors
Major League Soccer. It also has the
naming rights to the
Pepsi Center, an indoor sports facility in
Denver, Colorado.
Pepsi also has sponsorship deals in
international cricket teams. The
Pakistan cricket team is one of the teams that the brand sponsors. The team wears the Pepsi logo on the front of their test and ODI test match clothing.
On July 6, 2009, Pepsi announced it would make a $1 billion investment in Russia over three years, bringing the total Pepsi investment in the country to $4 billion.
In July 2009, Pepsi started marketing itself as Pecsi in
Argentina in response to its name being mispronounced by 25% of the population and as a way to connect more with all of the population.
In October 2008, Pepsi announced that it would be redesigning its logo and re-branding many of its products by early 2009. In 2009, Pepsi,
Diet Pepsi and
Pepsi Max began using all lower-case fonts for name brands, and Diet Pepsi Max was re-branded as Pepsi Max. The brand's
blue and red globe trademark became a series of "smiles," with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product until 2010. Pepsi released this logo in U.S. in late 2008, and later it was released in 2009 in
Canada (the first country outside of the United States for Pepsi's new logo), Brazil, Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile, Dominican Republic, the Philippines and Australia. In the rest of the world the new logo has been released in 2010. The old logo is still used in several markets internationally, and has been phased out most recently in
France and
Mexico. The UK started to use the new Pepsi logo on cans in an order different from the US can. In mid-2010, all Pepsi variants, regular, diet, and Pepsi Max, have started using only the medium-sized "smile" Pepsi Globe.
Pepsi and Pepsi Max cans and bottles in Australia now carry the localized version of the new Pepsi Logo. The word Pepsi and the logo are in the new style, while the word "Max" is still in the previous style.
Pepsi Wild Cherry finally received the 2008 Pepsi design in March 2010.
In 2011, for New York Fashion Week, Diet Pepsi introduced a "skinny" can that is taller and has been described as a "sassier" version of the traditional can that Pepsi says was made in "celebration of beautiful, confident women." The company's equating of "skinny" and "beautiful" and "confident" is drawing criticism from brand critics, consumers who do not back the "skinny is better" ethos, and the National Eating Disorders Association, which said that it takes offense to the can and the company's "thoughtless and irresponsible" comments. PepsiCo Inc. is a Fashion Week sponsor. This new can was made available to consumers nationwide in March.
In April 2011, Pepsi announced that customers will be able to buy a complete stranger a soda at a new "social" vending machine, and even record a video that the stranger would see when they pick up the gift.
In May 2011, the week before
Memorial Day, Pepsi launched a limited edition flavor called "Memorial Day Pepsi", with
blueberry and
cherry flavors added to the cola.
Ingredients
In the United States, Pepsi is made with carbonated water,
high fructose corn syrup,
caramel color,
sugar,
Phosphoric acid,
caffeine,
citric acid and
natural flavors. A can of Pepsi (12 fl ounces) has 41 grams of
carbohydrates (all from
sugar), 30 mg of
sodium, 0 grams of
fat, 0 grams of
protein, 38 mg of
caffeine and 150
calories.The caffeine-free Pepsi-Cola contains the same ingredients but without the caffeine.
The original Pepsi-Cola recipe was available from documents filed with the court at the time that the Pepsi-Cola Company went bankrupt in 1929. The original formula contained neither cola nor caffeine.
