In a previous post we talked about Green Marketing 3.0. Here is a very intersting story about a not that successful case.

In 2007, Pepsi launched a great cola called Pepsi Raw in the UK: a fantastic packaging and a great taste,containing no artificial preservatives, colours, flavourings or sweeteners. By replacing corn syrup with cane sugar, Pepsi managed to reduce the calorie content of a 300ml bottle from around 120 calories to around 90 calories. It all came with a great on-line and off-line marketing campaign and in 2009 Pepsi Raw included a Twitter tag on cans and asked consumers to log-on to the microblogging website to share their thoughts on the soda in 140 characters or less. The last Twitter feed dates January 2010 and at that date Pepsi Raw had only 1293 followers. It was not a great success, especially the rollout to grocery, and the product had to be withdrawn from the UK market.

Sad story, but this teaches that marketing to the retail sector can be tricky for big corporations too- we only hope that Pepsi will not give up in their attempt to offer to consumers a healthier and greener cola.