![]() ![]() They went from 12.4% of American beverage consumption in 1970 to 22.4% in 1985. First, it helped fizzy drinks win a greater “share of throat” (a term coined by Roberto Goizueta, a former boss of Coca-Cola, who died in 1997). This was a risky gambit for both cola rivals. In 1995 Pepsi outspent Coke by $112m to $82m. By 1985 those figures had shot up to $72m and $57m, respectively. In 1975 Coca-Cola spent around $25m on advertising and PepsiCo some $18m. Mr Kendall changed that, by forcing both companies into an advertising arms race. The two firms had competed for decades, but they mostly fought low-grade battles. Decades before Black Lives Matter he named African-Americans to top jobs, making PepsiCo the first big American firm to do so-staring down racists including the Ku Klux Klan, which organised a boycott.īut his masterstroke was the all-out marketing blitz against Coca-Cola, long the global market leader in non-alcoholic beverages. PepsiCo’s revenues last year of $67bn dwarfed Coca-Cola’s $37bn in sales. Two years after taking charge he acquired Frito-Lay, a leading purveyor of snacks, giving PepsiCo an advantage from diversification that persists to this day. Mr Kendall offered a mix of strategic vision, principled leadership and marketing flair. His legacy continues to shape the industry. ![]() By the time he stepped down as boss in 1986, PepsiCo’s sales had shot up nearly 40-fold, to $7.6bn. In 1974 he injected a dose of fizzy capitalism into the Soviet Union, which allowed Pepsi to become the first Western product to be legally sold behind the iron curtain. A gifted salesman, he rose quickly through the ranks from his start on the bottling line to become the firm’s top sales and marketing executive at the tender age of 35. Credit for that goes to Donald Kendall, PepsiCo’s legendary former boss, who died on September 19th aged 99. The cola wars became a cultural phenomenon. As the underdog, PepsiCo had stunned its bigger rival, Coca-Cola, by signing Michael Jackson, the era’s biggest musical star, to promote its brand in a record-setting $5m deal. “We didn’t start the fire.” He had had enough of the intense marketing battle between America’s fizzy-drinks behemoths. “ROCK AND ROLLER cola wars, I can’t take it any more!” cried Billy Joel in his chart-topping song from 1989. ![]()
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