Pepsi

Pepsi (Pepsi-Cola) is a carbonated soft drink similar to Coca-Cola.

It was invented independently of Coca-cola, but spent many years as a peripheral drink. It first achieved success by selling its drink in recycled beer bottles. This allowed it to sell larger bottles for lower cost than Coke. Pepsi thus became viewed as the drink of the lower classes. In the United States it also became viewed as the drink of blacks while a similar thing occurred in Canada where Pepsi was viewed the a drink for francophones.

In the 1950s Pepsi poured great resources into trying to improve its image. It bought many televison ads and began its long tradition of employing celebrities to sell its product. It grew and became a serious rival of the Coca-Cola corporation, but was still firmly in second place.

In the 1970s, Pepsi originated the marketing strategy known as "The Pepsi Generation." This strategy was a constant repetitious advertising of Pepsi aimed at young people. It worked under the assumption that there are new consumers coming of age every day and if one stops marketing to the newest consumers, one will have a shrinking base of established consumers of one's product.

Pepsi may have derived its name from pepsin, an enzyme produced in the mucosal lining of the stomach that acts to degrade protein. (Similar inspiration may have led to the naming of Pepsin Gum[?], first produced by Dr. Edward E. Beeman[?], whose bookkeeper, Nellie Horton, suggested that he put pepsin into gum "since so many people buy pepsin for digestion and gum for no reason at all.")

Soft drinks produced by Pepsi include: Diet Pepsi[?], Mountain Dew, Pepsi Max[?], Slice[?], Sierra Mist[?] and Mug Root Beer[?]. Aquafina water is also a Pepsi product.

Run by PepsiCo, the company also owns and operates 7Up International (but not 7UP in the United States), Quaker Oats[?], Gatorade, Frito-Lay[?] and Tropicana[?]. Pepsico is a much larger corporation than the Coca-cola corporation, even if Coke still outsells Pepsi in almost all areas of the world.

Until the mid-1990s, it also owned Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, but these fast-food restaurants were spun off into Tricon Global Restaurants.

As with many soft drinks, Pepsi has had various celebrity spokespersons throughout its existence. Among them:

• Madonna (for less than two days; her contract was cut)
• Michael Jackson (who was badly burned while filming a commercial)
• Britney Spears
• Hallie Kate Eisenberg[?]
• Halle Berry

One of the only areas of the world where Pepsi outsells Coke is the Canadian province of Quebec. Pepsi had long been the drink of Francophones and it continues to hold its dominance by relying on local Québécois celebrities (essentially Claude Meunier[?], of La Petite Vie[?] fame) to sell its product.

Former CEOs of Pepsi

• Donald M. Kendall

External link

PepsiCo's corporate website (http://www.pepsico.com)