Even when a product doesn’t live up to its expectations, you don’t often hear executives coming right out and calling it  ”a failure”. Instead, they tend to want to sugar coat these turds. But in the case of 7-Up Gold, that’s exactly what chief executive John R. Albers said in a New York Times article in 1988, roughly a year after Gold’s launch. What went wrong?

The history of 7-Up Gold actually begins over at Dr Pepper where the formula was invented. In 1986, The Dr Pepper Company and 7-Up began their merge together and by 1987 they were officially one. It was perfect timing, really. 7-UP had just launched Cherry 7-Up which captured 1% of the entire soda market. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but those were huge numbers, and 7-Up wanted a quick follow up hoping lighting would strike twice. The problem was, it takes a lot of time to come up new products. They found one ready to go in the unused Dr Pepper formula.

The first problem: 7-UP Gold kind of goes against everything 7-Up was selling itself as: caffeine-free, crisp, citrusy, and clear. As a matter of fact, the slogan ”Never Had It, Never Will.” was touting the fact  7-UP was a caffeine-free drink. Guess what Gold had in it? Caffeine. And it wasn’t clear. It was amber in color…almost cola-like.  As for the taste, it was described as cinnamon-spicy (it WAS designed over at Dr Pepper, afterall) with a hint of apple and ginger-ale flavoring.

The idea of marketing the drink as a completely new brand and not just a line extension of 7-UP was quickly shot down because of the large amount of money it would take to establish the name. Besides, the idea here was to quickly launch another Cherry 7-Up. Success of that drink went right to the executive’s heads and they made another big mistake:  little test marketing. Instead they pushed Gold quickly onto the shelves with a large marketing blitz.

One of the reasons Cherry 7-UP immediately clicked was because it’s a descriptive product name. People kind of know what to expect with a cherry flavored drink. If you know what you’re in for, you’re probably more willing to give it a try. What exactly does “Gold” taste like? My first thought was “metallic”, which is not necessarily a good aftertaste for a drink. The company went with “Gold” because it conjures of the image of  quality or high standards. The drink was also hard to label because of its unusual flavor, so they didn’t even bother trying to go that route.

Instead of capturing another 1% of the soft drink market, 7-Up Gold was about to clinch on to %0.1. Yikes. Initial sales were good, but they quickly slid, and according to the NY Times article by Douglas C. McGill, it started to bring sales of Cherry 7-Up down with it. That was enough for executives, and in less than a year, Gold had disappeared from shelves completely.

Check out this 7-Up Gold commercial:

Fun Fact: Kyle Gass, of Tenacious D fame is the 7-UP / pizza delivery dude in this ad. History!