Desserts Taste Great, But How Does Diet Dr. Pepper Taste?

I’ve been enduring the Diet Dr. Pepper “There’s Nothing Diet About It” campaign for most of the year and felt it was time to discuss it. I have had the opportunity to come across the print, outdoor and TV versions of the campaign, which are all visually well executed by the folks in Young & Rubicam’s San Francisco office. For those of you that have not had the opportunity the see these ads they all compare Diet Dr. Pepper to desserts – cake, jelly beans, ice cream, etc. with the “There’s Nothing Diet About It” themeline paying it off.

The band strategy for Diet Dr. Pepper is to focus on “Taste” with the message basically being that just because it's Diet does not mean it tastes bad. The problem is they went way too far with it and overshot the mark. Rather than making me want a Diet Dr. Pepper it makes me want cake, jelly beans, ice cream and to download old Tom Jones songs from iTunes (maybe Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was a man ahead of his time after all). Funny thing is I always thought advertising was supposed to actually interested in the product being advertised, go figure.

For years the message that Diet Dr. Pepper tastes just like regular Dr. Pepper had been pushed, a good message since the public perception is you’re sacrificing taste when you go diet – your waistline will be happy but your taste buds won’t. As a Mountain Dew addict myself, I can tell you that Diet Mountain Dew just does not cut it for me taste wise. If Diet Dr. Pepper has in fact solved that problem then that’s a great brand position for those who like Dr. Pepper and want to watch their calories, and a creative concept should have been developed to communicate just that. Instead we’ve got ridiculous creative that focuses a whole lot on taste, or a least other things that taste good, and does not demonstrate at all on the benefit or “Decadent Taste”, as the spot says, of the actual product.

There are a whole lot of people out there that like the taste of Dr. Pepper and there are a whole lot of Americans out there with expanding waistlines. Diet Dr. Pepper needs to scrap this campaign and start communicating in a clear way that Diet Dr. Pepper is the one brand that gives consumers a great tasting diet soda; then hammer home that simple brand position over and over again.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.