Why Have So Many Diet Sodas Been Rebranded As Zero Sugar?

As times and people change, the markets need to follow suit, and the soda industry is not exempt from that. Over the years, there has been a marketing overhaul from diet sodas to zero sugar. For some companies, this means actual changes in their beverage recipes, while others bring out new drink lines, hedging their bets, as consumer demands don't shift overnight.

According to CNN, during a 2021 industry conference PepsiCo Beverages marketing executive Greg Lyons stated that, "Younger people just don't like the word 'diet.'"This marks a massive departure from the soda markets of yesteryear, where Diet Coke held the No. 1 soft drink spot in the entire United States by the early 1980s. Gen Z, specifically, has been noted for its shift from diet culture to clean eating, which may just sound like word games, but the focus is less on curating one's body image and more about being aware of the products going into one's body and the effects they have. For sodas, controversy has long shrouded aspartame as a possible carcinogen, and other artificial sweeteners raise similar side-eye. 

Mintel analyst Alex Beckett also reported (via CNN) that the term "diet" actually "started falling out of fashion ... with the rise of zero" (as it's not just the youth changing the market, but men are a growing consumer demographic). Original diet soft drinks like Coca-Cola's Tab were marketed almost exclusively towards women, and Diet Coke was the soft drink of choice for women throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As "Zero" lines hit the shelves, the new branding offered a clean slate for genderless marketing, and recipe formulations focused more heavily on recreating the full-sugar flavor.That is something that diet sodas didn't place too much emphasis on, and overall did not affect female consumption, but did generally put off men who were not as swayed by the health myth to begin with.

Celebrity endorsement also played a pivotal role in diet soda culture, with fashion icons like Karl Lagerfeld famously drinking ten cans of Diet Coke a day. Pepsi launched a famous meta-advertisement for the 2023 Super Bowl, using comedy greats Steve Martin and Ben Stiller to promote Pepsi Zero Sugar through poking fun at the entire concept of celebrity endorsements.