Pepsi Won the Taste Test. Then It Lost to Everyone

Pepsi won the blind taste test. It watched Coca-Cola make one of the most famous flops in business history. And in 2024 it was the fourth best-selling soda in America. Here's how Pepsi lost to everyone, and how Coke never lost at all. 👇 Coke house or Pepsi house? Tell me in the comments. 🔔 Subscribe so you don't miss the next race. From a pharmacy in Atlanta (1886) and Brad's Drink in New Bern, to a nickel for 12 ounces, Coke going to war, Khrushchev's Pepsi, the Pepsi Generation, the Pepsi Challenge, Michael Jackson's $5 million deal, New Coke's 79 days, Diet Coke, Mountain Dew, Dr Pepper and Sprite. CHAPTERS 0:00 Pepsi in fourth place 0:37 1886: The pharmacy 1:44 1893: Brad's Drink 2:20 1930s: Twice as much 2:52 1941: Coke goes to war 3:19 1959: The Pepsi Generation 3:57 The Pepsi Challenge 4:29 1980: The starting grid 5:22 New Coke 6:16 Classic comes back 6:59 2010: Diet Coke's turn 7:26 2014: Pepsi fights back 7:41 2023: Dr Pepper 8:09 2024: Fourth place 8:32 Still #1 8:56 Coke or Pepsi? HOW WE COUNT Share of U.S. carbonated soft drink volume, by brand, 1980–2025 (top 6 shown). Beverage Digest / Maxwell figures as published in the HBS case "Cola Wars Continue" (Yoffie & Kim, 2010), AP, TIME, WSJ, CNN, WFAA, AJC, Food Processing and FOX 7; Beverage Marketing Corp. for 1998 and 2003. Shares are reported for key years; bars move smoothly between reported years. Before 1995, Dr Pepper, Sprite and 7 Up include their diet versions. Story sources: The Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo, NCpedia, Tennessee Encyclopedia, Britannica, History.com, TIME (1985), Mental Floss, AP, Bloomberg, Advertising Hall of Fame, Dr Pepper Museum, UPI. PHOTO & FOOTAGE CREDITS (all real photos and footage; cropped and toned) Public domain: John Margolies Roadside America archive, Carol M. Highsmith, National Photo Company Collection, Thomas J. O'Halloran (Library of Congress); Miles Brothers film, Market Street, San Francisco, 1906 (Library of Congress); FSA/OWI: Marion Post Wolcott, Marjory Collins, Louise Rosskam; DOCUMERICA/NARA: Harry Schaefer, Ted Rozumalski; U.S. Army Signal Corps; U.S. Department of Defense; National Park Service; White House Photo Office; Ronald Reagan and Nixon Presidential Libraries; State Archives of Florida; Harris & Ewing; Conrad Poirier (BAnQ); Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola period ads; American Druggist (1900); New Bern city directory and U and I yearbook (Internet Archive). No known restrictions: SMU Central University Libraries; CDHS. Public domain (photographer's release): Alf van Beem. Coca-Cola script logo and Pepsi-Cola's first logo (1898–1903): public domain files via Wikimedia Commons (trademarks of their owners; animated for this video). Contour-bottle illustration: Lead Change. CC0: Indy beetle, Rowanswiki. CC BY 2.0: Celine Admiraal / Netherlands Embassy, James Larrison, Paul Stafford (TravelMag.com), Robert (Flickr), Seattle Municipal Archives. CC BY-SA 2.0: Atomic Taco, Peter Bond. CC BY-SA 3.0: Family photos of Infrogmation of New Orleans. CC BY-SA 4.0: Richard Guy Wilson. Free-license stock video (Pexels): TP Motion, Tima Miroshnichenko, MART PRODUCTION, Hamzah Tariq, cottonbro studio, Prakash Chavda. Licensed stock video: Adobe Stock. Photos via Wikimedia Commons unless noted. Music: original score. Brand Wars on Lead Change: who was #1, and why. #cokevspepsi #colawars #businesshistory