Bruce Horovitz

USA TODAY

Coke has spent billions linking its brand to the color red.

Red labels on its bottles. Red logos in its ads. And, of course, its iconic red cans.

But it's recently begun selling a new product dubbed Coca-Cola Life in bottles with green labels in limited parts of the Southern U.S. -- and in green cans in U.K. It's a "mid-calorie" cola -- not a diet cola nor a full-calorie one.

For Coca-Cola Life, green is the new red.

What gives? Green is the color of 7-Up. And the Starbucks siren. And the Jolly Green Giant.

Coca-Cola even embraced its own redness back in the 1980's with this slogan: Red, White and You.

But for Coca-Cola -- whose carbonated soft drink sales in both the diet and non-diet sectors have been on the steady decline -- the color rule book appears to have been tossed out the window for Coca-Cola Life.

Until the beverage launches nationally -- due sometime in November -- Coke executives decline to discuss the Coca-Cola Life marketing strategy.

But by the time that national rollout takes place, Coke Life will have "expanded packaging options across the country," says spokeswoman Katie Condon. That likely means not only green bottle labels but green Coca-Cola Life cans, too.

The major marketing issue isn't just whether or not consumers will buy into a mid-calorie cola -- something that's not previously been a big hit domestically. But just as important, will consumers buy into Coke served from green can or poured out of a bottle with a green label?

Coca-Cola Life already has had some success in Argentina, Chile, Great Britain, Sweden and Mexico. The company declines to discuss its sales now -- in eight-ounce glass bottles -- at the Fresh Market grocery store locations across Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and South and Central Florida.

But, if you ask branding gurus -- as we did -- green's got game.

Three marketing and color experts contacted by USA TODAY give Coke trend points for going green. Coca-Cola Life, after all, is mid-calorie product that's sweetened with a combination of sugar and Stevia, a sweetener perceived as natural because it's made from the leaves of a plant.

"It may seem odd because we're so used to seeing Coca-Cola in red," says Kate Smith, president of Sensational Color, a corporate color consulting firm. "But green is the color we associate with natural and fresh. They're just trying to reinforce that Stevia is a natural sweetener."

While red has been cemented into the minds of Boomers as Coke's color, that's not necessarily the case with the key Millennial market, says Smith.

Since the current trend among Millennials is away from diet sodas as well as sodas loaded with sugar, the move from red to green could work, concurs Leeann Leahy, president of The Via Agency, an ad agency in Portland, Maine. "The benefit of the natural green really stands out in a category that's so blue, silver and red."

Green not only connotes refreshing -- but also healthful, invigorating and even life-sustaining, says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. But, warns Eiseman, "it is a stretch -- and a bit iffy -- as to whether or not the consumer will translate those 'healthier' properties to a soft drink."







