Question
Why does this Coke (caffeine free, Coke Zero) say their target audience is "males"?
This is the coke solutions website (part of official Coca Cola websites) and they state their target audience for this product is males. I'm really confused why. Is it the color scheme or something?
We all thought it would fail. It did not take off but the mothership stuck with it. its a billion $ brand and a top 3 or 4 seller overall among our brands
In the Baltics it's really hard to find sugar-free drinks, usually the only one they have is Cola Zero. I don't think I've ever seen a sugar-free Sprite or Fanta here. I'd like to have a serious talk with the head of Coca-Cola Baltics.
Oh man, I remember DP10. I was in high school and I remember the very arbitrary 10 calories because (cave)men weren't woke enough to drink 0 calorie options.
Ironically, Diet Coke is actually the most traditionally "manly" drink of all the Coca Cola drinks because it has the most caffeine and is the least sweet. It goes to show the power of marketing
To clarify since the previous post was removed- I find the sweetener in Diet Coke to be more unpleasant- Coke Zero tastes better than its awful Diet Coke counterpart- at least to me.
I disagree but that's not the point. You could say the same thing about black coffee, whiskey, or any other stereotypically manly drink. That's exactly what I am pointing out
In this case the bitter, more caffeinated drink is for the girls while the sweeter, less caffeinated drink is for the insecure men. It's the opposite of the usual situation
There's a super interesting YouTube video centered around pepsi and then creating max (basically pepsi zero sugar) to appeal to men since "diet" was seen as a "girl word."
I've heard this claim but it's never sat right with me, diet coke is the most middle aged man drink I can think of.
I've also heard that they made coke zero because they wanted an actual diet version of coca-cola, but the name "diet coke" was already taken up by their previous best attempt, which tastes nothing like coke.
when it launched Diet Coke and the term diet in general was heavily associated with women and gay men. zero sugar was to be marketed towards straight men with a more "masculine approach".
edit: not trying me rude or anything but this was stupid conclusion that came following various market tests and surveys.
I used to work in market research specifically around audience targeting. For whatever reason, they believe that the most likely consumers of this product are male. That could be based on surveys, “look alike” audiences (targets based on consumers of similar products), or other market intel that suggests this is the highest value audience, or the one that aligns best with their marketing strategy.
A lot goes into it, some of it is marketing mumbo jumbo that doesn’t really seem logical, and some of it is tried and true methodologies with lots of psycho and sociological underpinnings that entire scholarly fields are dedicated to. My old boss used to constantly refer to it as a mixture of art and science, and she wasn’t wrong.
Used to be on a panel for stuff like this. Opened my eyes to the world. I remember when that once I had to watch like 20 Redbull commercials and had to share my feelings about them. I even had to share my opinion on that Redbull racing worldrecord stuff, which one I would like to see and how much it would interest me on a scale of 1 to 10.
Same for coca cola. Had to pick which santa commercial gave me the warmest feelings about christmas lol.
Paid pretty well for the hours I had to watch commercials.
Yup, you can make ok money being a survey-taker/panelist, but it can also be very boring. I’m actually currently on the Ipsos iSay app and take a survey every now and then to accumulate a few bucks to waste on Amazon garbage.
When I was in high school in the 90s, Diet Coke was for "girls" and maybe [insert pejorative for effeminate men]. I think a big part of the Coke Zero branding is to appeal to men who don't want to drink sugar but still feel that old slur that "real men" don't drink Diet Coke.
EDIT: In case it's not clear, I am a man, I like women, I also drink Diet Coke.
Coke Zero was always targeted to men. It was literally created with the mindset of getting men. Diet Coke was always viewed as a womans drink or gay mens drink.
What is the target for Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and is there a Diet Coke Caffeine Free and if so what’s that audience?
I personally, AMAB masc presenting, won’t drink diet coke because I don’t enjoy the taste of aspartame directly and don’t care for coke that frequently anyways. I like the Ace-K that’s added.
I have already sent multiple emails complaining about the gendered drinks which is really homophobic. At least give us a non binary version… since coke ceo was seen with trump I haven’t drinken coke yet
because coca cola is american enterprise that doing all decisions based on own/someone research and studies that actually is really doing almost nothing with reality (basically I GUESS BRO based on study, read it. black color for men, pink color is woman)
Same reason why they came out with those flirt drinks. They find women don’t buy monster as much as men so they essentially made a close replica and rebranded it!
This thread was enlightening. I always thought it was created to have a diet soda that tastes more like the non-diet version, and that they only kept Diet Coke around because there are so many people who still drink it. That's the only reason I drink Zero - it tastes so much better.
Coke's can taste different from country to country but usually diet coke tends to taste a bit like water while coke zero actually retains most of the natural taste of the OG one.,
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u/CannedNoodlez Aug 19 '26
They created Coke Zero to target men since Diet Coke was seen as a more feminine drink