The Lempert Report Celebrates 30 years!

The Lempert Report
January 26, 2015

Stay tuned to hear some of the top stories from our debut newsletter!

This year marks 30 years since our very first issue of The Lempert Report. This week, we wanted to celebrate those 30 years by taking a look back and highlighting some of the stories we wrote about in our debut.  One of the stories, back in 1985 was about Coca Cola who re-formulated, what was at the time, their 99 year old secret recipe. It was Coca Cola’s attempt to garner some media attention and boost sales above their rival Pepsi, and then Coke president Donald Keough called it “the best risk we ever took.”
Our take at the time however, was a little more measured suggesting that while public curiosity would no doubt boost sales initially what Coke really needed was a long term sales solution. Since 1980 Coke’s market share dropped 2.5% while Pepsi’s rose 1.5%. And perhaps a whole new image is what Coke needed to get back in the game.
?30 years later Coca Cola is fighting a different issue,  health.  Soda consumption has decreased in recent years with health officials turning it into an example of America’s obesity problem and excess sugar consumption. According to a recent article in US News & World Report, Soda hit its peak in 1998, when Americans on average drank the equivalent of 576 cans of it a year, according to data from the industry tracker Beverage Digest. That figure was down to about 450 cans a year in 2013.  So, how is Coke handling this problem?  Both Coke and Pepsi are now pushing smaller cans and bottles that contain fewer calories.   So shelves are being filled with 7.5-ounce "mini-cans" and 8-ounce and 8.5-ounce glass and aluminum bottles. The cans and bottles have been around for a few years, but Coke and Pepsi are making them more widely available and marketing them more aggressively.
Tune in again tomorrow to hear some more stories from our first ever Lempert Report!