I’m old enough (just barely) to remember the cola wars of the 1980s and the arms race that spawned the likes of New Coke, Pepsi Clear, and a host of other evolutionary dead ends. Maybe that’s why it caught my attention when a flurry of soda brands—the flagship Pepsi soda brand itself alongside several other PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Company brands—recently unveiled new visual identities and logos. In isolation, these redesigns wouldn’t be unusual. What struck me was the cluster of them in spring 2023, with Fanta and 7UP joining Pepsi in changing their respective brand livery (click here for more details on those changes). This recent string of design updates comes on the heels of Coca-Cola and Sprite both adopting black script logos on-pack to signify Zero Sugar, and Sprite switching to clear bottles, at the end of 2022.
