In Praise of Pepsico's Throwback Promotion

Posted by Iroquois Plisken

One of the things that has oft-divided this great nation is which brand of dark caramel colored and flavored sugar water you prefer. We are not short on options, though mostly it boils down to Coca-Cola versus Pepsico. I don't mean to diminish the contributions of Sam's Choice or RC Cola or Jones Soda (which I should, as you'll later see, ostensibly be praising), but let's be honest. The big cola money simply resides in those two.

I'm not entirely certain of the soda (or pop, as one writer on this site is apt to say) preferences in this site's reader base, but allow me to paint with a broad brush here--those of us from the southern part of the United States are more likely to prefer Coca-Cola and those from the northern part are more likely to prefer Pepsi. I have really only the empirical evidence from my life to back this up. When I was but a young lad, most places where I was from only served Coke. My parents did the sensible thing with substitute goods--they bought the one on sale. Indeed, Coke v. Pepsi is often the textbook economic example of a substitute good. As I got older, however, and considerably more eccentric, I began to develop a preference.

Nowadays, the only soda I normally consume (outside of bars as a mixer) is typically Coke Zero, in part because I have grown to like it, but also in part because I have had a falling out with Hugo Chavez and this is my way of passive-aggressively informing him. Recently, I have found that Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like Regular Dr. Pepper than one may give credit for. The development that captured my heart, though, was Pepsi's Throwback promotion.

For those not familiar, Pepsi Throwback uses the older variant of cola formation, most specifically the use of (what I assume is) cane/beet sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup, one of my mortal enemies. Without delving into the political side of things, it is my belief that HFCS is one of the stronger causes of obesity in this country, which is why I personally avoid it whenever possible. Nevertheless and setting that point aside, I have found from this promotion that soda just flat out tastes better with sugar. For more HFCS resources and critcisms/defenses, click here.

What are the differences in the sodas? HFCS sodas just taste like syrupy water. Pure Sugar Sodas actually taste like something. There's a fuller body to the taste. You drink one and you're quite satiated for a good amount of time. No more pounding multiple sodas in a row to slake one's thirst, unless you really want to have the throwback to third grade sugar high/crash. Because you don't have to consume as many to get the sweet tooth filled, you'll end up consuming less. If you didn't get a chance to try some of the stuff, I definitely recommend picking some up next time.

So, I applaud Pepsi for rolling out this campaign. It was pretty tough to find any PT cans around town, but there's been an ample stock of Mountain Dew cans. Alas, the promotion ended, but I made sure to have enough to last me for a good 4 months. If only this was made into a permanent line of drinks, I would gladly pay extra to have some, but most (rational) folks would not. A pity.