Most important launch of 2013

I spend many hours each week monitoring news, analysing change. The key is to sift between the here today, gone tomorrow and the turning points.

Turning points are rare. And I believe we have just seen one. It’s at least the most important launch of the year so far and could become a market changer in years to come. What is it ?

It’s the new green-labelled Coca-Cola Life in Argentina. It’s a stevia-sweetened regular Coke, which offers the same taste but with almost 60% fewer calories.

This is not the first brand to use stevia for a reduced calorie regular soft drink. Coca-Cola itself has already achieved that with Sprite. Nor is it the end of the road. New stevia variants will improve taste further and reduce calories further.

What’s significant is this. When the world’s most iconic brand embarks on such a radical change, that encourages the rest of the world to contemplate more fundamental change too.

The world is looking for healthier choices, ideally without compromising on taste and enjoyment. If all regular carbonated soft drinks had 60% less calories in them, that would be a huge contribution.

The same applies to fat and salt. The really big change is not the availability of a low fat or low salt option, but when consumer tastes have adjusted to make it the new regular option.