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Dyson returned to Atlanta on June 28 and summoned his officers for a Friday executive meeting. "We asked ourselves, 'Will it go away? Is it logical? How do we address it?' " Conferring with Keough, Dyson found that his superior shared his worries. The two agreed that some kind of strategic decision should be reached on July 8. They were anxious to see what sales would be like over the long Fourth of July weekend. The results were flat.
Matters reached a head last Monday after Dyson heard the complaints of bottlers. He recalls, "If one could have taken a vote, the clear majority would have been for us to begin a two-cola policy." Dyson conveyed that sentiment to Keough, who promptly huddled with Goizueta. Between them, the two top executives decided to bring back old Coke. After flirting with the name Original Coca-Cola, they settled on Coca-Cola Classic.
On Tuesday, an exhausted Keough returned home about 9 p.m., informed his wife Marilyn about the new name, and slumped off to bed. His wife stayed downstairs before joining her husband around 11. Nudging him awake, she told Keough that she liked the new name. He remained awake the rest of the night wondering what he had done.
Once they chose their course of action, Keough and Goizueta moved swiftly. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Keough went to an Atlanta television studio to tape a commercial that showed him announcing the return of old Coke. Beamed by satellite to a New Jersey production center, the spot was retaped and flown by helicopter to Manhattan for delivery to the major networks for broadcast Wednesday on the evening news.
Meanwhile, frantic efforts were being made to design a new can. Such a job normally takes at least 60 days, but time was now agonizingly short. Bill Schermerhorn, Coke's brand manager, made an urgent telephone call last Monday to Alvin Schechter, creative director of the Schechter Group, a Manhattan design firm. By 10 p.m. Tuesday, Schechter had completed the assignment. The red can features the traditional Coca-Cola script with the word "Classic" in black roman type.
For weeks, the tightly knit world of market research has been abuzz with gossip about Coke's mistake. "It appears to be a colossal marketing blunder," says George Mihaly, head of the consulting division of Crossley Surveys. Mihaly discovered widespread adverse reaction to the new Coke while conducting an unrelated study of upper-level managers. When asked for their opinion of the change in Coke, all the executives gave it a negative review. Since he had done some work for Coke in the past, Mihaly told, his findings to high-level contacts at the company. The early warnings were apparently ignored.
Mihaly believes that the Coke experience shows up some of the weaknesses of taste tests. He is critical of them in general because consumers have difficulty distinguishing slight variations in taste.