Crystal Pepsi

Crystal Pepsi is a cola soft drink made by PepsiCo. It has been marketed in the United States and Canada initially from 1992 to 1994, and has had sporadic limited releases since 2016.

In 1991, PepsiCo's risk-taking leadership ambitiously reshaped the company. It pushed consumer research to harness the clear craze and the New Age trend and to find a healthier recipe to stimulate the slowing cola market. After 1,000 product concepts and 3,000 formulations, it discovered a lighter flavor and appearance, with modified food starch instead of caramel color, and 20 fewer calories. It is a "totally new product" which resembles standard Pepsi but reportedly tastes less "acidic".

Crystal Pepsi was launched in 1992 with a huge marketing campaign and to great success, capturing a 1% soft drink market share worth in its first year. PepsiCo made some mistakes, and Coca-Cola launched Tab Clear as a deliberate "kamikaze" copy to sabotage Crystal Pepsi, so it was off the market in 1994. Inspired by a grassroots campaign via telephone and the Internet, it was briefly re-released sporadically in the 2010s.

Creation

Background

The Coca-Cola Company had produced a clear cola in the past, produced as a secret one-off made as a particular political favor between General Dwight D. Eisenhower and top Soviet General Georgy Zhukov. Clear Coca-Cola, named White Coke, was produced to disguise the beverage as vodka.

The clear craze was a global marketing fad in the 1980s and 1990s, equating clarity with purity. The fad was inspired by the reintroduction of Ivory soap and its marketing slogan of "99 and 44/100 percent pure". In 1990, a Canadian manufacturer released a colorless cola, called Canadian Spirit, which it tested in Boston, New York, Washington, Toronto, and Montreal. Soft drink sales boomed in the 1980s with popularization of diet drinks, but in 1991 slowed to a 1.8% growth rate. PepsiCo devised 3,000 formulations of a new clear drink, under consumer testing. A serving of Crystal Pepsi has 134 calories compared to Pepsi's 154 calories20 fewer. In November 1991, Pepsi-Cola publicly confirmed that it was working on a colorless version of Pepsi.

Yum! Brands chairman David C. Novak is credited with introducing the Crystal Pepsi concept. In a December 2007 interview, he reminisced:

Distribution

On April 13, 1992, Crystal Pepsi was launched in test markets of Dallas, Providence, Salt Lake City, and Colorado One month in test markets showed an unusually and unexpectedly strong launch due to product uniqueness and unprecedented consumer awareness. In Colorado, interviews of 100,000 customers further revealed demand for a diet version. This led to PepsiCo launching Diet Crystal Pepsi on August 8, 1992, initially in a new test market Grand Rapids, and launched in Colorado in October.

Crystal Pepsi was launched nationwide in the US beginning in first half of December 1992. In its first year, it captured one full percentage point of U.S. soft drink sales, or approximately (equivalent to $ in ). The drink also launched in Canada in January 1993. Coca-Cola followed by launching Tab Clear on December 14, 1992.

PepsiCo did not release Crystal Pepsi overseas while it was being marketed in the United States and Canada. The company instead released a different low-calorie drink, Pepsi Max, in Europe and Australia in 1993.

By late 1993, Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, and the final batches were delivered to retailers during the first few months of 1994. Several months later, Pepsi briefly released a reformulated citrus-cola hybrid called Crystal From Pepsi.

Marketing

thumb|Crystal Pepsi racing car advertisement

Crystal Pepsi was marketed as a caffeine-free "clear alternative" to normal colas. Its official slogan was "You've never seen a taste like this". This advertisement was parodied by Saturday Night Live as Crystal Gravy. Full-sized sample bottles were distributed with the Sunday paper deliveries such as the Boston Globe in Massachusetts.

Reception

In its first year, Crystal Pepsi captured 1% of U.S. soft drink sales, or approximately . Beverage Digest said "This is another instance where Pepsi has really shown leadership to strike out in a new direction."

Shortly after Crystal Pepsi's nationwide release, The Coca-Cola Company followed by launching Tab Clear on December 14, 1992. During 1993, several other manufacturers also released colorless versions of their existing products, such as colorless Palmolive dish soap, colorless Softsoap liquid soap, and colorless Rembrandt mouthwash. Even the Miller Brewing Company released a colorless beer, called Miller Clear, in Richmond, Minneapolis, and Austin the following year.

However, after its initial success, Crystal Pepsi quickly became more of a fad as the trend of clear sodas wore off. According to PepsiCo, Crystal Pepsi sales played a large part in the company's profits for the first quarter of 1993 (when it launched nationally), but otherwise did not have much impact for the full year profits of 1993. Subsequently and presently, Crystal Pepsi has been viewed as a failure. Its failure has also been attributed to the apparent deterioration of its taste when the bottle was exposed in the sun.

Revival

In 2005, a similarly transparent Pepsi cola was launched in Mexico and sold for a limited time as Pepsi Clear. On August 22, 2008, PepsiCo filed for trademarks in the United States on the product names "Pepsi Clear" and "Diet Pepsi Clear", but both were soon abandoned. Pepsi Clear was later released in Thailand in 2025, but as a zero sugar clear cola.

thumb|Store in [[Maryland with Crystal Pepsi, 2017]]

In March 2015, an online grassroots campaign began to bring back Crystal Pepsi, encouraged by a similar campaign that made The Coca-Cola Company reintroduce Surge in the United States. The following month, a second, separate petition was led by an online competitive eating personality, Kevin Strahle, also known as The L.A. Beast, who had made a 2013 viral video of himself drinking a vintage bottle of Crystal Pepsi. This generated enough interest for a telephone and email campaign, garnering around 37,000 Change.org petition signatures, tens of thousands of tagged comments on social media, 15 billboards erected around the Los Angeles area, and a commitment to ride a mobile billboard truck at PepsiCo's headquarters in Purchase, New York with a gathering of supporters at a park nearby on June 15 and 16, 2015.

The interest from this campaign led to an official response to Strahle by PepsiCo on June 8, 2015: "We've had customers ask us to bring back their favorite products before, but never with your level of enthusiasm and humor. We're lucky to have a Pepsi superfan like you on our side. We definitely hear you and your followers and we think you'll all be happy with what's in store. Stay tuned." A year later, PepsiCo officially brought back Crystal Pepsi for a limited time, beginning on July 11, 2016 in Canada and August 8 in America. It was promoted with a retro styled website and marketing video, including The Crystal Pepsi Trail browser game as an officially licensed parody of the classic The Oregon Trail. PepsiCo brought the product back again as part of the drink's 30th anniversary in 2022 with a total of 300 units given away as part of a competition.