When scale isn’t everything
While Tab met its demise as part of what Coke termed “global portfolio refresh,” it was more like portfolio attrition. Coke announced that efforts would center on “category-leading brands with the greatest potential for growth and scale.”
Asked to comment for this story about the future for Tab, Coca-Cola sent Adweek a statement: “We focus on brands that help accelerate our growth strategy, which includes prioritizing those with the potential for greater scale.”
It’s difficult to fault a brand for wanting to pool its resources behind those parts of its portfolio that promise the most growth. Coke is, after all, a public company beholden to Wall Street’s demands, and Tab made up a mere 1% of sales in its final years of production. And though Tab—sweetened with saccharine—was groundbreaking for its day, it also helped create the diet-cola category that eventually eclipsed it with aspartame-sweetened beverages—Diet Coke foremost among them.
At the same time, Tab drinkers contend that Coke owes them a solid for years of faithful patronage. “Our mothers and grandmothers put that drink on the map for you,” as one put it.
In addition, branding history has long demonstrated that even products that generate little at the register can still be valuable parts of a company portfolio. HP’s super-cheap printers, Costco’s rotisserie chicken and even Sony’s PlayStation 5 have been routinely sold at break-even or at-loss rates, simply because they’re good at drawing customers in who’ll spend money on accessories or other items.
Trish Priest, Save Tab’s secretary, also argues that the potential pool of Tab customers could well be larger than Coke realizes.
“Coca-Cola knows their business,” she concedes, “but we know the customer. We’ve done a lot of surveys we’ve included in various communications to both Coca-Cola and the bottlers to help them understand that there’s a large demand for Tab that I don’t think they’re aware of.”