Customer Reviews

The Other Guy Blinked: How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While reading this book, I actually felt like I was in Pepsi's corporate headquarters, in Purchase New York, listening in on their strategic planning and implementation. Roger Enrico wrote this book when he was just the president of Pepsi USA. He tells a great story of the underdog going to battle with the giant. Today Enrico is the CEO of Pepsi CO, and responsible for the spin off that created the new company Tricon. Reading this book will emphasize one's understanding of the importance and value of having a good mentor. Also, after reading Enrico's accounts of the "cola wars" one may never want to watch television or go to the movies again, because all of the real life drama is created by the competition that corporate America thrives on. Enrico points out that Pepsi alone sells enough soft drinks in a year to float an entire armada, and then proposes the question "why?" As he says, water is a lot cheaper and booze provides a better kick. Its all about great marketing. Once I picked the book up, I couldn't put it down.

A bit one sided, but what can you expect. Still a very interesting perspective on Pepsi's strategy throughout history and especially during the cola wars. Must have been an exciting time to work for the company. Lots of interesting business/branding issues.

You may also want to read something by Sergio Zyman who was CMO for Coke at thew time, now of Zyman Group to get a wider perspective. He's written `The End of Marketing as We Know It' , `The End of Advertising as We Know It' , `Renovate Before You Innovate : Why Doing the New Thing Might Not Be the Right Thing'
, `Building Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online' ...

But yes I definitely enjoyed this book about Pepsi.


Tom Anderson
Anderson Analytics, LLC
http://www.andersonanalytics.com

I laugh every time I see this book and I am frankly amazed that Roger Enrico actually believes his own nonsense. The other guy did NOT blink! Haha. The switch to "New Coke" was one of the greatest marketing coups in capitalistic history. Coke got more press and sold more units during and after that brilliant publicity stunt than ever before. People were actually importing left over "Old Coke" syrup from places like Australia! Coke emerged from that the clear winner, and they were already the winner. How Enrico thinks that Pepsi "won" the cola wars is beyond me. Coke has always enjoyed a larger (much larger) market share and after the "New Coke" stunt they commanded even more. That whole situation was an incredible winner for Coke and the fact that Enrico thinks that Pepsi actually "won" in that contest shows why Pepsi is number two and will always be number two (if not three or four). Think back to that period, if you were alive then, do you remember the sold-out racks of "Old Coke"? Every store I went to was sold out, and remained sold out for months and I live in the South were Pepsi enjoys its greatest popularity. Every time a new shipment of "Old Coke" came in, it immediately sold out. When Coke re-introduced "Coke Classic" the grocers still couldn't keep it in stock for many months afterwards. It created a whole new legion of Coke fans and re-energized brand loyalty for years and years to come. All anyone was thinking about vis-a-vis "cola" during that time was Coca-Cola. Talk about missing the boat, Enrico missed the entire armada!

Although it's a bit old fashioned for marketing in the 21st century it is a very well-written story of the battle on Pepsi's point of view. The book is very easy to read and the story goes very easy. Anyway it can help you get examples of what great communication can do.

This book is a nice history tool. Whoever who was there at the eighties would remember the epic "Colas war" between Pepsi and Coke. You could have a lot of insights about advertising, diversification and marketing at the time with this book. Problems are: (1) This is obviusly biased, for Enrico couldn't write a book granting any victory to Coke; (2) What happened next: Goizueta became sort of brahman of the business community of America and the main topic of Enrico's book (the debacle of New Coke due, according to him, to Coke's despair because of the excellent performance of Pepsi which in turn lead to this well-rememberede disaster) has became a classic case of how a leader turns a catastrophe into a golden opportunity. Of course, debacle it was when the book was written and I bought all the insights of Enrico, but almost 20 years after it doesn't seem such a problem at all. At the end, in spite of this book, considering the market value of Coke and the results of its planning, probably it was Coke's army leaded by Goizueta who won the war if it was a war at all, since nobody call like this any more.

This book is a nice history tool. Whoever who was there at the eighties would remember the epic "Colas war" between Pepsi and Coke. You could have a lot of insights about advertising, diversification and marketing at the time with this book. Problems are: (1) This is obviusly biased, for Enrico couldn't write a book granting any victory to Coke; (2) What happened next: Goizueta became sort of brahman of the business community of America and the main topic of Enrico's book (the debacle of New Coke due, according to him, to Coke's despair because of the excellent performance of Pepsi which in turn lead to this well-rememberede disaster) has became a classic case of how a leader turns a catastrophe into a golden opportunity. Of course, debacle it was when the book was written and I bought all the insights of Enrico, but almost 20 years after it doesn't seem such a problem at all. At the end, in spite of this book, considering the market value of Coke and the results of its planning, probably it was Coke's army leaded by Goizueta who won the war if it was a war at all, since nobody call like this any more.