Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi was a colorless, caffeine-free
soft drink that was made by
PepsiCo from
1992 to
1993 in the
United States,
Canada, and for a short amount of time in
Australia. In
Europe, Crystal Pepsi was sold for a somewhat longer time. It is considered by some to be the company's equivalent of
New Coke, as both were massive commercial failures.
Healthy living had become a popular concept in the early 1990s, with some focus on a vague notion of purity. Due to this, Crystal Pepsi was marketed as a "clear alternative" to normal
colas, equating clearness with purity. The marketing tagline for the new cola was "you've never seen a taste like this". The taste did not turn out to be much different from other colas, though; unlike many other colorless soft drinks, which usually have a lemon-lime flavor, Crystal Pepsi tasted much like original Pepsi.
Starting with test markets in April 1992, PepsiCo found that the new soda was approved by those who got to try it early on. Pleased with the results, the company began to sell it nationwide in 1993. A large
marketing campaign was launched along with it, for which the company invented the world's first photo-realistic, computer-generated bus
wrap printing. The most well known part of the campaign was the series of television advertisements that used
Van Halen's hit song "Right Now," which premiered on nationwide television during
Super Bowl XXVII on
January 31, 1993.
Initial sales were good, but they quickly fell to the point that the product was failing to generate a profit adequate to warrant continued marketing of it. This was due to the fact that many consumers did not like the taste of it and many others thought it was too similar to the regular Pepsi soda to merit being sold as a separate product. As a result, Pepsi pulled the drink off the market. It returned several months later as a reformulated
citrus drink and retitled "Crystal by Pepsi", but this was short lived as well.
Despite all this, Crystal Pepsi still has a small following, particularly on the
internet, where several web sites have been created in honor of it. Some of the few remaining cans and bottles of it can be found for auction on the commercial website
eBay. In late 2005, some Mexican grocery stores started carrying "PepsiClear" which was a limited edition of a clear Pepsi.
*The comedy show
Saturday Night Live created a
parody of Crystal Pepsi's "Right Now" advertisements. The spoof, broadcast in October
1993, featured cast members
Kevin Nealon and
Julia Sweeney enjoying a clear, viscous "Crystal Gravy", while a voiceover said, "finally you can see your meat" and ended with the superimposed text: "Crystal Gravy. You've never seen a gravy like this". It was also more broadly targeted at the then trend of clear foodstuffs, which included other beverages, such as
Snapple and
Clearly Canadian.
*On
VH1's television programme
I Love the 90s, Crystal Pepsi was on the 1993 episode, with the character Waldo from
Where's Waldo? hidden with bottles of the drink.
Mo Rocca commented that it looked like
saliva.
*The
domain name CrystalPepsi.com was once registered by "Maddox", the webmaster of
The Best Page in the Universe.
*In an episode of
The Simpsons, "
Marge on the Lam", Homer gets his hands stuck in a vending machine trying to get a "Crystal Buzz", most likely a spoof of Crystal Pepsi.
*An episode of
FLCL pokes fun at a discontinued Japanese beverage. In the American translation, it is replaced with Crystal Pepsi.
*
List of Pepsi types*
List of commercial failures*
Pepsi Blue*
A Crystal Pepsi fan site
