Get your daily recommended dose of carbos. And caffeine.
Do you remember Surge? Caffeine addicts of a certain age will know exactly what we’re referring to, but younger readers may only know the product’s name from online campaigns to bring it back. Now that the product’s biggest fans are young adults with disposable income and credit cards, Coca-Cola has brought the beverage back into production, sold exclusively on Amazon. The first batch sold out within hours.
Yes, before you ask, here’s the Amazon link to buy Surge. Now then: let’s go back in high-fructose history. Surge began its life as a Norwegian competitor to Mountain Dew, which was called Urge. The product was even referred to as “MDK,” which stood for “Mountain Dew Killer,” internally at Coca-Cola. The product was popular when it was introduced in 1996, but waned and was off the market by 2002. A similar Coca-Cola product, Vault, went on and off the market last decade: Vault was effectively Surge with 50% more caffeine.
For now, Coca-Cola says that the return of Surge to refrigerators nationwide is a limited-time thing. Of course, if customers continue to buy cases of the stuff from Amazon, that will indicate to Coke that they can bring the stuff back to regular stores and soda fountains. They’d have to rethink the marketing, though: Americans aren’t so much into “carbos” anymore.
Coca-Cola credits a Facebook page, Surge Movement, with inspiring them to bring back the product. The dedicated people behind that page went to amusing lengths to prove their love of Surge, even tapping a decade-old, technically expired box of Surge syrup and selling it to fans to promote their advertising efforts.
We also learned this weekend that Zima, the first sort of sweet, clear “beer alternative” beverage to hit the market in 1993, never really went away, but lives on in Japan, where it is inexplicably popular among men in their twenties. You can even buy it in bars. It was still in production in the United States until 2008.
If we’re going to bring back products from the ’90s, can we talk about crystal Pepsi?
I remember liking it, but in 1992 I may have been too young to know any better. That may be the case for people who are clamoring to buy cases of Surge now, too.
Coca-Cola Is Bringing Surge Back [Buzzfeed]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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