Have you noticed that you’re seeing more sodas on shelves labeled “Zero Sugar” and fewer labeled “Diet”? I have.
As you make your way through the soda aisle, you may notice a lot less of the word “diet” than you used to. This is because soda companies are scrambling to keep young customers drinking their beverages.
There are a lot of soft drinks labeled “Zero Sugar” now, and they seem to be proliferating. It’s not that the diet sodas themselves are disappearing—it’s just that the wording on the packaging has changed. Companies are replacing the word “diet” with the term “zero sugar,” because “diet” is a word that’s fallen out of favor with millennials and Gen Z adults.
Canada Dry, Schweppes, 7Up, A&W, and Sunkist now label their diet drinks “zero sugar.” And while other brands still come in “diet” packaging, many of those, including the namesake Dr. Pepper brand, have added a separate “zero sugar” drink to their product lineup.
“Younger people just don’t like the word ‘diet,’” said Greg Lyons, chief marketing officer at PepsiCo Beverages North America, according to CNN.
Pepsi was one of the first beverage companies to favor the term “zero sugar,” rebranding Pepsi Max as Pepsi Zero Sugar back in 2016.
“No Gen Z wants to be on a diet these days,” Lyons confessed, according to CNN. “It’s about the freedom to choose what they want without feeling guilty.”
Meanwhile, other beverage companies, like Coca-Cola, have begun using “zero” instead of “diet” for the purpose of advertising its no-sugar products in a more gender-neutral way. When Coca-Cola introduced Coke Zero to the U.S. back in 2005, the Baltimore Sun published a story explaining that Coke Zero’s “marketing is geared to a demographic, such as young people and the most macho of men, who see a stigma attached to the word diet.”
In 2017, Coke Zero was rebranded to Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which got a new look and tastes this past July.
‘AWM’ explained further the reality of diet culture:
In reality, those who advocate against diet culture are not as anti-diet as people might think they are – rather, most people who are not down with diet culture simply feel that they should be able to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to cut out soda from their diets, and people, in general, do not like the idea of being told how much sugar is “acceptable” by anyone other than themselves.
The new labels should be hitting store shelves soon in order to avoid any backlash against the soda companies themselves.
Diet culture has been struggling for years now, and it doesn’t look like that is going to change any time soon. For the companies who are trying to stay afloat in this environment, rebranding their diet sodas as “zero sugar” drinks seems like the best option.
However, whether or not this will be successful in the long run is yet to be seen. It’s possible that people will see this for what it is – a cheap ploy by soda companies to make more money – and continue avoiding diet culture altogether. Only time will tell.
Source: AWM