The "flop of the century" might rightfully belong to Coca-Cola with the temporary withdrawal, in 1986, of the classic recipe, but even its great competitor, Pepsi Cola, seems to have envied a bit of its glory, as it made, just a few years later, an attempt to imitate it.
In the '90s, there was a trend in the American market for "transparent" products with names like "clear" (e.g., China Cola Clear, Miller Clear) or "crystal" (e.g., Close Up Crystal), which, due to their color, tried to convey an image of purity and innocence. Recognizing Pepsi Cola's executives' the trend towards anything that seems cleaner and healthier, they decided to penetrate that market.
So, in 1992, Pepsi Cola discovered an unsatisfied need: the need for a "clear" cola beverage. Moreover, the success of various cola beverages such as diet cola, sugar-free cola, or cherry cola made the top executives of the company believe that the success could be repeated with a "clear" beverage.
In 1993, after experiments and tests that lasted several months, the new beverage, without caffeine and preservatives, was ready. Its name was Crystal Pepsi, ans, as implied by the first ingredient of its name, it was colorless. With the slogan 'You have never seen a taste like this', the new beverage attempted to compete with bottled waters like Perrier and Evian.
Despite the $100 million spent on the design and promotion of the new product, Crystal Pepsi failed big time. Although initial sales were more than satisfactory, the end result wasn't good at all. It seems that intensive advertising persuaded consumers to try it, but not to adopt it. A few months later, Crystal Pepsi passed into history, or rather into oblivion, but that did not prevent the company from introducing a "clone" shortly after, Crystal by Pepsi, which proved to be equally unsuccessful as its predecessor.
WHAT WENT WRONG
Consumers didn't share the enthusiasm of the company's high-ranking executives for a crystal-clear, caffeine-free Pepsi. The company tried to differentiate its product from competitors by "investing" in color, but this left consumers indifferent. Furthermore, a product with the name Pepsi, which proclaims itself healthy and pure, rather contradicts the company's "flagship," the classic dark-colored Pepsi Cola, which has always been synonymous with caffeine and sugar. It was quite utopian to assume that someone interested in their health would start consuming a product with the name Pepsi.
Moreover, the advertising campaign raised the bar of expectations quite high. However, as it turned out, the taste of the new beverage did not satisfy the public, except perhaps for a small segment of the population, which still demands its return even today. Many even considered that it did not differ enough from classic Pepsi Cola, nor from other cola-type beverages.