Coke Zero is meant to be a Diet Coke for men, with all the taste and aspirational qualities of the classic Coke drink without the sugar. We thought we would test that claim. We admit, an office Coke Challenge is hardly a scientific way to gauge whether a new product lives up to the marketing, but we thought we'd give it a go.
We blind-tasted Coke Classic, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Of the 11 people who took part, seven were able to correctly identify the three different varieties.
A couple of people confused Diet Coke with Coke Classic, and a couple also confused Diet Coke with Coke Zero. Only one of the tasters, however, confused Coke Classic with Coke Zero, which is the mistake those at Coca-Cola would be hoping for.
In terms of taste preference, Coke Classic was the hands down winner, with seven votes. Zero won three votes, two from women and one from a man, although one of our female journos actually thought it was Diet Coke she was drinking, while our male who preferred Zero thought it was Coke Classic. Another said that though she preferred the taste of Coke Classic, she'd be switching to Coke Zero because it tasted closer to the original than Diet Coke.
We even forced a couple of Coke non-drinkers to take part, and although they were hard pushed to state any preference, Coke Zero did eventually get the thumbs up from both. So, if The Grocer were to produce a taste report for Zero, we would have to conclude: not bad
but could do better.
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