Diet Coke, Facing Sales Drop, Tries Out New Flavors, Sleek Can

ATLANTA, GA — Diet Coke, facing declining sales, is getting a full-fledged makeover in the hopes that four new flavors in colorful, skinnier cans will convert millennials into diet soda drinkers. On Wednesday, The Coca-Cola Company announced it's breathing new life into the Diet Coke brand — which turns 36 this year — with new flavors: Ginger Lime, Feisty Cherry, Zesty Blood Orange and Twisted Mango.

Don't worry boomers, you're not being left behind. The original Diet Coke formula will be kept as is and continue to be sold nationwide. The company says the new flavors are simply aimed at attracting a "new generation of drinkers."

“Millennials are now thirstier than ever for adventures and new experiences, and we want to be right by their side,” said Rafael Acevedo, Coca-Cola North America’s group director for Diet Coke.

Consumer research showed young people have an affinity for big, refreshing flavors that taste good, such as hoppy craft beers and spicy sauces, the company said. It sought feedback from more than 10,000 people on topics ranging from possible flavors to packaging changes. Researchers tested more than 30 flavor combinations, including tropical, citrus and botanical notes, before deciding on the four flavors.

You'll be able to find both Diet Coke and its younger siblings in skinnier 12 ounce cans in mid-January. They'll be sold both in singles and in eight-packs. Regular Diet Coke will also be offered in all existing package sizes, including standard 12-oz. cans, mini cans and glass bottles.

And as before, it still has zero calories.

But why now? What is driving the hard reset on Diet Coke?

Well, the rebrand comes amid falling sales. In the third quarter of 2017, Diet Coke sales dropped by a mid single-digit percentage. Fortune, citing industry tracker Beverage Digest, reported that Diet Coke sales as measured by volume fell an estimated 4.3 percent last year.

That figure came on the heels of a previous Fortune report that said demand for Diet Coke fell more than 5 percent in 2015. Overall, sales of carbonated soft drinks in America fell for more than a decade, with total volume slipping 1.2 percent in 2015 and 0.9 percent a year earlier.

Furthermore, several communities in recent years began taxing sugary beverages. It's a policy predicated on the idea that sugary drinks are pretty unhealthy, and that if it costs more to buy them, customers will drink less of them.

Just this year, Seattle added 1.75 cents per ounce to the price of any drink with added sugar, with only some exceptions. A typical 16 ounce bottle of non-diet soda now costs about 28 cents more.

Berkeley, California, passed a penny-per-ounce tax on sugar-sweetened beverages in 2014 and Philadelphia followed suit last year with a sugary drink tax of 1.5 cents per ounce.

Cook County, Illinois — which includes Chicago and is the second-most populated county in the country — tried to implement a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages last year too, but it was repealed in October, less than four months later.

And it's easy to see why communities are taking it upon themselves to steer people away from sugary drinks. According to an assessment published three years ago in the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation, 25,000 Americans died in 2010 due to drinking sugar-sweetened beverages. The U.S. had the second-highest sugary drink-related deaths out of the 20 most populous countries in the world. Most of those Americans died from diabetes.

So, naturally, some might turn to Coca-Cola's suddenly cheaper zero-sugar alternative. Savvy shoppers should beware though, as several studies have shown diet sodas might be plenty harmful — if not more so than sugar-filled varieties.

French researchers in 2013 confirmed sweet soft drinks were tied to type 2 diabetes, but perhaps more importantly, they said there was actually a "higher risk of diabetes from so-called ‘diet’ or ‘light’ drinks than from ‘normal’ sweetened soft drinks."

That study followed 2012 research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine that said people who drank diet soda every day were at a higher risk of several vascular events, including strokes and heart attacks.

Furthermore, one study presented in 2011 at the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions suggested that drinking diet soda was associated with a larger waistline. Another at the meeting said aspartame — an ingredient in Diet Coke — raised fasting glucose, or blood sugar, in diabetes-prone mice.

Just some food, er drink, for thought.

Photo credit: The Coca-Cola Company