What to some is just breaking news is a crisis for Priest.
“I lived in fear of it being discontinued for years,” she said. “When it was announced that Coca-Cola would be discontinuing it, I had people I haven’t spoken to in 10 years calling me to offer my condolences.”
Priest drinks about three cans of Tabs a day, and she can remember how long. “It’s been a central part of my life,” she said, and is something she’s known for. “I had [colleagues] decorate my office for an important birthday “with Tab themed decorations and” I drink Tabs, water and wine. ”
Priest started stocking up on boxes of Tabs in 2020 when she realized the drink would soon run out of stock. She has 23 packs of 12 left, and she is dividing her supply. She will stick to the final case “for posterity.”
But Priest did not give up without fighting. She hopes that with the help of fervent fans, they will convince Coca-Cola to bring Tab back.
A company spokesperson told CNN Business: “It was a difficult decision to shut down TaB. “To continue to innovate and give consumers the choices they want, we have to make tough choices about our portfolio.”
The spokesperson said that “there are no plans to put [Tab] come back.”
It can be hard to imagine a company as large as Coke succumbing to a relatively small fanbase of a forgotten brand. But it happened before.
Committee SaveTabSoda
Adam Burbach noticed a flurry of online activity after Coke announced Tab’s death. Across social media, fans mourned the product and wondered if they could change Coca-Cola’s mind.
“There are many people [were] “We should do something,” he said.
Burbach took action. He’s launched an all-out campaign to bring back sodas alongside a core group of fans, including Priest, who call themselves the SaveTabSoda Committee. The team coordinated appeal days, encouraging fans to bomb Coca-Cola’s customer service line with (courtesy) phone calls and sending notes to Coca-Cola’s leadership team.
“We appreciate the passionate army of Tab lovers who have been approaching and adopting the brand for nearly six decades,” said a company spokesperson.
There’s a big difference between paying attention to feedback about Coke, the iconic Coca-Cola product, and things like Tabs. But Coca-Cola has also changed course towards fringe products.
Surge is back!
Coca-Cola introduced the Surge to the market in 1997 as a competitor to Mountain Dew and pulled it off six years later. Bereft Surge fans wanted it back, and years later, in 2011, a group of social media enthusiasts decided to help.
Meanwhile, Matt Winans created a Surge page on Facebook in the early days of the platform so he could “like” soft drinks and eventually the page amassed thousands of fans. Winans discovered the “Surge Movement” and contacted its founder to see if he would like to become a site administrator.
“We joined forces and the rest is pretty much history,” Winans said.
Winans and others worked for years to bring the Surge back. Like the Tab fans, they wrote letters and scheduled calls. They spent money on Facebook ads. And in 2014, Coca-Cola reintroduced the Surge with limited capacity in what a company spokesman called “business decisions”. Surge was discontinued in bottles and cans as part of the October 2020 purge, but is still available in some restaurants.
With the success of the Surge, Burbach pressed Winans to talk about strategy on Tab.
“He wanted to know exactly what we did to bring it back,” said Winans, “who thinks Burbach and his team had a good shot.
“Both [Tab and Surge] Winans said. What is his advice? “SaveTab should keep working hard.”
What’s Next for the Save Tab
If Coca-Cola doesn’t bring Tab back, fans have backup plans.
Jenny Boyter, a committee member who estimates she sent about 25 letters to Coke and made a Tab celebration video, said she would switch to Diet Pepsi, Diet Dr Pepper or iced tea.
But she’s trying for the best case scenario. “My plan was for Coke to say, ‘Let me pull the truck up and give you more Tabs,'” Boyter said. “That’s my fantasy.”
While Boyter wants Tab back, she also enjoys her committee work. “It was fun,” she said. “I feel… really close to them.”
Boyter is in it for a long time, in part due to her relationships with the likes of Burbach and Priest.
“I really feel guilty saying, ‘I’ve been working on this for a few years, it doesn’t happen, I’m out,'” she said. “I still want to stay with the committee and keep trying. ”
