A Slice Refreshed, and Refreshed Once More: The Ongoing Epic of a Soda Perpetually Reinterpreted for New Coolers

In this episode of Decisions at the Fulcrum, we trace Slice from its 1984 debut inside Pepsi’s lemon-lime strategy to its slow disappearance from the American soda aisle. We begin in the fluorescent chill of the cola wars, where Pepsi decides that Teem no longer has enough force in the market and launches Slice with a sharper promise. It would have fruit and offer a contemporary vocab for soda. From there, we follow the brand through its early success, its increasingly unstable identity in the 1990s, and it faded out by the mid-to-late 2000s with Pepsi waving bye and introducing new products like Sierra Mist.  Goodbye Slice? Not exactly. What changed between the 2000s and the 2020s? A great deal! U.S. Americans drank more bottled water than soda by 2016, sparkling water had a long moment, the ingredients changed, and carbonation adapted during the period! By 2018, the Slice trademark had been revived as a sparkling water brand built around organic fruit juice. In May 2024 Suja Life had acquired the name and prepared it for another reinvention inside a functional soda market, another new cooler! Using a framework of retro branding with updated utility, this episode asks why some dormant brands become culturally relevant again while others remain shelf ghosts. Slice turns out to be an especially revealing case because Pepsi did not bring it back. Later owners purchased a name that still carried brightness, fruit, and recognition, then translated that memory into new beverage forms for new consumer anxieties. This is a story about strategic timing, category change, and the strange durability of emotionally legible brands. Fair use note This episode includes archival audio of advertising and brand materials for purposes of criticism, comment, and analysis. In the United States, fair use is evaluated case by case under Section 107 and depends on the specific circumstances and the four statutory factors. References for show notes Cattaneo, E., & Guerini, C. (2012). Assessing the revival potential of brands from the past: How relevant is nostalgia in retro branding strategies? Journal of Brand Management, 19(8), 680–687. https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2012.16. Vengattil, M. Americans drank more bottled water than soda in 2016. Reuters. These episodes take an extensive amount of effort to produce. If you'd like to see more after the first half of this year, please consider subscribing!