This article is about the beverage available outside North America. For the North American beverage, see Pepsi Zero Sugar. For the roller coaster, see Pepsi Max Big One.
Pepsi Max (also known as Pepsi Black in some countries) is a low-calorie, sugar-free cola, marketed by PepsiCo as an alternative to Pepsi and Diet Pepsi, except for Norway, where it is the main Pepsi flavor. Pepsi Max is available primarily in Asian, European and Australia/New Zealand markets. While Pepsi Max was released in April 1993, it did not become available in the United States (with a different formulation) until 2007. In the US this different product was renamed Pepsi Zero Sugar in 2016.
Pepsi Black limited edition Lime and Original Flavor (Middle East)
Pepsi Max debuted in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Italy on April 5, 1993. The rollout was expanded to Ireland the following September, and to France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands the following December. By the end of 1994, Pepsi Max was sold in approximately twenty countries. By the end of 1995, that figure had more than doubled. The product remained unavailable in the United States until 2006 (the US, PepsiCo's home market, and the largest consumer of carbonated soft drinks), where one of its principal ingredients had not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.[1] The ingredient—acesulfame potassium—is combined with aspartame to provide the beverage's sweetness,[2] whereas some other diet colas are sweetened by aspartame alone.
In early-2005, Pepsi Max Twist (with added lemon-lime flavour) joined the UK and Australian product line. In autumn 2005, "Pepsi Max Punch" was marketed in the UK for the festive season. Containing ginger and cinnamon, the product was similar in flavour to Pepsi Holiday Spice, a sugar-sweetened variety of Pepsi that was marketed in the US one year earlier. In late-2005 and early-2006, a coffee-flavoured variety was introduced in France, Finland, Ireland, Norway, and the UK. Known as "Pepsi Max Cappuccino" ("Pepsi Max Coffee Cino" in the UK), the product was prefigured by the similar Pepsi Kona (briefly test-marketed in the US in 1996) and Pepsi Tarik, available in Malaysia since 2005.
Standard 500ml Pepsi Max bottle from the UK
Pepsi Max was introduced to South Korea, Bulgaria, and the Philippines in 2006, as well as being reintroduced into Argentina in the spring of 2006 after being phased out after its launch in 1994. As well as this, Pepsi Max was introduced into Brazil, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates during early 2007.
Small 0.33 liter Pepsi Max bottles
In October 2008, Pepsi announced it would be redesigning its logo and re-branding many of its products. Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi Max all use lower-case fonts for name brands, Mountain Dew was renamed "Mtn Dew", and Diet Pepsi Max was re-branded as Pepsi Max. The brand's blue and red globe trademark became a series of "smiles", with the central white band arcing at different angles depending on the product. In the case of Pepsi Max, besides renaming the drink with its international name, the logo has a large "smile" likely to emphasize the North American drink's "Wake up people!" advertising campaign, and also uses black in the bottom half of the globe as opposed to the more standard royal blue. The new lower-case font used on Pepsi's products is reminiscent of the font used in Diet Pepsi's logo from the 1960s to the mid-1980s. The website for the "Wake up people!" campaign now redirects to the Pepsi Refresh Project. In the UK, the cans had the "Pepsi" text and the new Pepsi globe (with the normal Pepsi "smile" and the blue bottom half, as opposed to the black half used in the US) but the "Max" is in the previous style.
Can of Pepsi Max
A Pepsi Max Lime version was released in the United States in February 2010 under the name "Pepsi Max Cease Fire".[citation needed] It was introduced in the UK in late-2011. It was cross-promoted with a new flavor series of Doritos chips called "3rd Degree Burn".[citation needed] In July 2010, Pepsi began to change its North American branding of Pepsi Max to match the global branding. It carried a Max typography similar to that used worldwide, and rolled out a new slogan: "Zero Calories. Maximum Pepsi Taste". Its formula was not changed.[citation needed]
In May 2011, Pepsi introduced the drink to Spain.[citation needed]
In 2013, Pepsi Max collaborated with English magician Steven Frayne, also known as Dynamo, as part of their 'Live for Now' campaign which was launched the previous year. As part of a launch event, Dynamo was seen in London hanging from the side of a number 543 double-decker bus on its journey along Millbank, past the Houses of Parliament and across Westminster Bridge, while hundreds of passers by watched.[3][4] The partnership also saw Dynamo appear in an on-pack promotion on cans and bottles of Pepsi Max during July and August, and secured 19 million unique impressions and 7 million total video views on social media.[5]
In 2016, the drink was introduced to Venezuela. In 2017 Pepsi Max was launched in Costa Rica.[6]
In 2017, the drink was reintroduced in Belarus, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, India, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine as Pepsi Black.[citation needed]
As of 2017 it is available as Pepsi Max in Albania, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and Venezuela.[citation needed]
Product positioning
Recent[when?] UK and Australia Pepsi Max television advertisements (as well as in several European countries[which?]) have featured the taglines "Maximum taste, no sugar" and "Don't worry, there's no sugar."[citation needed] Some have incorporated extreme sports, as well as video games such as Motocross Mania, in an attempt to appeal to young men (in contrast to other diet cola drinks, which tend to target young women).[citation needed] The British advertising campaign involved retouched versions of the American "Do the Dew" commercials for Mountain Dew (a variant of which is sold in the UK), rebranded as "Live life to the Max".[citation needed]
Coca-Cola Zero, a sugar-free cola from The Coca-Cola Company, is marketed in a similar manner. In the UK, some Coke Zero advertising alluded to Pepsi Max, leading to a counter-campaign by Pepsi extolling the virtues of the concept of "maximum" over that of "zero".[7][8][9]
Variants
The Pepsi Max brand has seen many flavor variants and varieties across the world where the drink is marketed.[citation needed]
Sold as a limited edition during the 2005 Christmas Season. It is similar to the North American Pepsi Holiday Spice which was sold the year before and the year after.
Australia United Kingdom France Lebanon Finland Sweden Norway Denmark Iceland Hungary Romania Poland Serbia Czech Republic China Poland, Portugal Serbia Spain
Was first sold as Pepsi Max Cease Fire and Pepsi Max Citrus Freeze in Australia/New Zealand and the United Kingdom respectively in 2011 as part of a promotion with Doritos corn chips before being re-released in 2016 (as a limited edition) and 2021 respectively. Sold as Pepsi Black Lime in some countries
Beginning in early 1994, an entirely different Pepsi Max was marketed in Canada. Now regarded as a precursor to Pepsi Edge, it was sweetened with a combination of aspartame and high fructose corn syrup. As a result, it contained two-thirds fewer calories than full-sugar colas (including regular Pepsi), but more calories than conventional diet/light colas (or the version of Pepsi Max sold elsewhere). The Canadian product was discontinued in 2002; the Diet Pepsi Max product was introduced in 2008 has no direct relationship to the earlier formulation.
Diet Coke is a sugar-free and low-calorie soft drink produced and distributed by the Coca-Cola Company. It contains artificial sweeteners instead of sugar. Unveiled on July 8, 1982, and introduced in the United States one month later, it was the first new brand since Coca-Cola's creation in 1886 to use the Coca-Cola trademark, although Diet Coke is not listed as a Coca-Cola variant on the Coca-Cola Company’s website. The product quickly overtook the company's existing diet cola, Tab, in sales.
Pepsi One, corporately styled PEPSI ONE, was a sugar-free cola, marketed by PepsiCo in the United States as an alternative to regular Pepsi and Diet Pepsi.
Diet sodas are soft drinks which contain little or no sugar or calories. First introduced onto the market in 1949, diet sodas are typically marketed for those with diabetes or who wish to reduce their sugar or caloric intake.
Diet Rite is an American brand of no-calorie soft drinks that was originally distributed by the RC Cola company.
Coca-Cola C2 was a cola-flavored beverage produced in response to the low-carbohydrate diet trend. This Coke product was marketed as having half the carbohydrates, sugars and calories compared to standard Coca-Cola. It contained aspartame, acesulfame potassium, and sucralose in addition to the high fructose corn syrup typically found in cola beverages distributed in America.
Pepsi Twist is a lemon flavored cola, marketed by PepsiCo as an alternative to regular Pepsi.
Fresca is a grapefruit-flavored citrus soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company. Borrowing the word Fresca from Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, it was introduced in the United States in 1966. Originally a bottled sugar-free diet soda, sugar sweetened versions were introduced in some markets.
Diet Pepsi, currently stylised in all caps as PEPSI DIET, is a diet carbonated cola soft drink produced by PepsiCo, introduced in 1964 as a variant of Pepsi with no sugar. First test marketed in 1963 under the name Patio Diet Cola, it was re-branded as Diet Pepsi the following year, becoming the first diet cola to be distributed on a national scale in the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s, its competition consisted of the Coca-Cola Company's subsequently discontinued Tab. The United States represents the largest single market for Diet Pepsi.
Pepsi Wild Cherry is a cherry-flavored cola first introduced in 1988 by PepsiCo. Two sugar-free versions are also available, with zero calories, named Diet Pepsi Wild Cherry and Pepsi Zero Sugar Wild Cherry, and a vanilla-flavored version Pepsi Cherry Vanilla is also available. Alongside the beverages, a lip balm version is also available. Pepsi Wild Cherry is currently sold in the United States and Canada as a regular, permanent product.
Sierra Mist was a lemon-lime flavored soft drink line introduced by PepsiCo in 1999. By 2003 it was available in all US markets.
Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, commonly known as Coke Zero, is a diet soda produced by the Coca-Cola Company.
Enviga is was a carbonated canned green-tea drink. Enviga is a trademark of Beverage Partners Worldwide, a joint venture between The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé. It was available in three flavors: Green Tea, Tropical Pomegranate, and Mixed Berry. According to Coca-Cola, Enviga burns 60 to 100 calories per three 12-oz.(330 ml) cans due to its high EGCG and caffeine content. The makers of the drink were sued for making fraudulent health claims about weight loss, and agreed to settle and cease repeating them. By 2008 the drink was practically removed from the market.
Slice was a line of fruit-flavored soft drinks originally manufactured by PepsiCo and introduced in 1984 but discontinued by PepsiCo in North America in the late 2000s.
Coca-Cola Blak was a coffee-flavored soft drink introduced by Coca-Cola in 2006 and discontinued in 2008. The mid-calorie drink was introduced first in France and subsequently in other markets, including Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Lithuania.
Pepsi Zero Sugar, is a zero-calorie, sugar-free, formerly ginseng-infused cola sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame K, marketed by PepsiCo. It originally contained nearly twice the caffeine of Pepsi's other cola beverages. Before a recipe change in late 2022, Pepsi Zero Sugar contained 69 milligrams of caffeine per 355 mL (12.5 imp fl oz), versus 36 milligrams in Diet Pepsi. A new logo was introduced in 2020.
Pepsi-Cola Soda Shop Made with Real Sugar, originally named Pepsi Throwback and Pepsi Made with Real Sugar and still branded that way in some international markets, is a soft drink sold by PepsiCo. The drink is flavored with cane sugar and beet sugar instead of the sugar substitute high-fructose corn syrup that has been used in the standard version of Pepsi within North America since the 1980s.
Sprite is a clear, lemon-lime flavored soft drink created by the Coca-Cola Company. Sprite comes in additional flavors, including cranberry, cherry, grape, orange, tropical, ginger, and vanilla. Ice, peach, Berryclear remix, and newer versions of the drinks are artificially sweetened. Sprite was created primarily to compete against 7 Up.
Pepsi Next is a discontinued cola-flavored carbonated soft drink produced by PepsiCo. It was a variant of the Pepsi cola range.
References
↑ Stoddard, Bob (1997). Pepsi. 100 Years. General Publishing Group. ISBN9781575440262.
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