(“TaB Diet Soda: The customer lifeline,” Advanced Brand Management, 2002 — by Paul Temporal)

TaB has a shrinking market share of less than 1% and yet it has been spared the axe by Coca-Cola. The brand, once so successful, now resides at the bottom of the category heap. It was launched in 1963, and immediately became the drink of the “free” generation, the “Beautiful Drink for Beautiful People.” But in 1982 Diet Coke was introduced to add more power to the Coke brand, and TaB began to go downhill. Basically, its demise has been determined by a cannibalization of sales by Diet Coke, and a simultaneous competitive attack from Diet Pepsi and other such carbonated drinks. The company made several attempts to revitalize TaB in the 1980s and 1990s, through various product changes (fro example, reducing the content of the carcinogen saccharin and increasing the amount of aspartame, adding calcium, and making a clear alternative), and even by repositioning TaB as the drink with “sass.” However, all these efforts have failed to revive the brand.

Continue reading →

(“Keeping Tab(s): Brands’ fans loyal,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, October 14, 2003 — by Scott Leith -Staff)

Pam Nutt is clearly a TaB nut.

Yes, she’s heard plenty of little witticisms based on her last name. No matter. This one is accurate, Nutt said, given that she drinks six cans of Tab a day.

“When the distributor told me they were going to discontinue TaB in the machine at school, I almost died,” said Nutt, a teacher who lives in Henry County. “I begged them not to take it out.”

Such hard-core devotion might seem a bit much, but it is keeping TaB alive. As a little-known, small-selling soda, TaB owes its existence to a small army of sometimes fanatical consumers who will do almost anything to see that store shelves remain stocked with their favorite drink.

Continue reading →

(“What We Used To Drink: TaB Clear Cola,” This is Bristol (in association with The Evening Post), June 15, 2004)

TaB Clear Cola? Never heard of it.

Never heard of it?

If you didn’t drink TaB Clear Cola in the 90s, you weren’t really there, mate. It was a design classic, a legend born in 1993, one of the greatest years of the decade, the year when, errmm, errmm . . .

You’re struggling . . .

The year when Michael Jackson was accused (for the first time) of kiddy-fiddling and Clint Eastwood’s movie Unforgiven won an Oscar.

Never heard of that, either. Tell me more about TaB Clear.

Continue reading →