I stopped drinking Mtn Dew around the time the Code Red stuff was announced--because their marketing seemed vaguely racist. Check out this analysis: (from this link...)

[Note that I'm not saying I agree with everything said in this article, but the basic facts were enough to make me decide not to give them anymore of my money, certainly not for that product...]

Pepsico targets blacks with new caffeinated beverage
By Lukas Hauser
May 1, 2001

Last month, as Mired reported, Coca-Cola introduced a new soft drink line aimed at urban minorities. Now Pepsico is following suit — in spades.

Pepsi-Cola CEO Gary Rodkin actually described to the New York Times the target demographic of Pepsi’s new high-caffeine soft drink, Code Red: "A kid with his hair on end, his eyes bugging out," Mr. Rodkin said.

The allusions to the distinguishing features of a racist Sambo/Buckwheat caricature are by no means coincidental.

But how will Pepsico penetrate the urban market? Simple. The same way the CIA did in the 1980s: introduce addictive narcotics.

"Caffeine is of interest to our consumers," said Steven S. Reinemund, chief executive of Pepsico, to the Times. "The whole idea of being able to provide excitement is critical. It's incumbent on us to provide that."

Coca-Cola has focused heavy resources on marketing Sprite to blacks, which, crucially, is caffeine-free. Pepsi hopes to capitalize on Coca-Cola’s caffeine mistake by adding records amounts of the psychoactive substance to Code Red.

With a name that suggests cockroach spray, Code Red has over 40 percent more caffeine than the typical caffeinated soft drink, skirting the limits on the drug imposed by the federal Food and Drug Administration, and is bound to produce physiological dependency in a habitual user. (What the company calls “excitement”.) Without frequent intake, according to the Office of the Surgeon General, caffeine addicts often experience acute withdrawal symptoms like headaches, anxiety, and nausea. Scientists also claim that soft drinks make children's bone structure more brittle.

(Beverage-industry pressure has ensured that the F.D.A. has never acted on petitions from public health groups to require manufacturers to list the amount of caffeine in their drinks.)

Code Red is a spin-off of Mountain Dew, a high-caffeine soda that is marketed mostly to young white people who are into “extreme” sports like skateboarding, snowboarding, or wrestling and live in the suburbs or rural areas. To expand its market share for Mountain Dew Code Red, Pepsico is altering its marketing to tap the consumer base that it "missed the first time": blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

"That's the whole mission that we have, trying to extend the excitement into the urban centers," actually said Charlee Taylor-Hines, Pepsi's new director of urban and ethnic marketing. "With a name like Code Red that's all about action, urgency and excitement, things are target consumer knows plenty about."

The goal to take over poor minority markets was so important to the company that Pepsico even chose the drink's flavor in order to do attract what the company calls "soul taste". At first, factions within the company wanted to color the new spin-off blue and add "arctic" or "ice" to the name. But it’s common perception in the soft drink indutry that people from minority groups favor, according to the Times, "sweet, fruity flavors." So Pepsico corporate researchers instead came up with Wild Cherry Mountain Dew, later renamed “Code Red”, to capitalize on the color of police lights, gang colors, and blood.

Rather than release Busta Rhymes-starring television commercials immediately, as is often the case with major product launches, the company plans to initially roll the product out in inner-city convenience stores and gas stations. According to the Times, the company calls such locations "Dew's house", intentionally paraphrasing Run DMC. Others might call it "ghetto marketing".

ben said:

Things like this scare the shit out of me.

ben said:[quote]I stopped drinking Mtn Dew around the time the Code Red stuff was announced--because their marketing seemed vaguely racist. Check out this analysis: (from this link...)

jthad1129 said:

i swear...i was just thinking the same thing



"With a name that suggests cockroach spray, Code Red has over 40 percent more caffeine than the typical caffeinated soft drink, skirting the limits on the drug imposed by the federal Food and Drug Administration, and is bound to produce physiological dependency in a habitual user"

i used to work with a guy in ..who had to have at least 40 oz of mountain dew a day.