Whereas few mourned Sierra Mist — the soda had captured solely 0.1 p.c of the soda-market share to Sprite’s 7 p.c — Pepsi’s advertising marketing campaign aimed to place Starry as a fresh-faced cool child on the shelf. The drink is geared to “a shopper who’s concurrently optimistic concerning the future and brings a way of irreverence to their on a regular basis,” per the advertising supplies. “Starry is vivid, optimistic, and rooted in tradition and enjoyable.”
Mmmm, okay boomer, however what does it style like? The corporate promised “a game-changing recipe with the proper steadiness of lemon lime taste and sweetness in comparison with the competitors.”
To check that declare, we snagged some cans of Sierra Mist earlier than they disappeared from the earth eternally, and tasted it alongside its alternative, Starry. And for enjoyable, we additionally sampled Sprite, the Coca-Cola product that Starry is designed to compete with.
After just a few sips, it instantly turned clear that this was no rebrand — that’s, Pepsi didn’t simply slap a brand new label on Sierra Mist and name it a day (although some TikTokers suspected that was the case). We discovered Starry to be decidedly completely different from its predecessor. For one factor, it’s noticeably much less candy, which is an efficient factor. (Sierra Mist was made with actual sugar, whereas Starry makes use of high-fructose corn syrup.) As a result of it was much less cloying, Starry’s citrus taste learn cleaner and crisper than within the older formulation. Sharper bubbles got here by way of within the Starry, too.
The subsequent-gen swap appears to handle Sierra Mist’s split-personality drawback. And for that, let’s take a bit of journey down a citrus-lined reminiscence lane: Pepsi launched Sierra Mist in 1999, changing Slice (keep in mind that?) to higher compete with Sprite and 7UP. However the product additionally appeared to ape Pepsi’s different long-standing lemon-lime providing, Mountain Dew. In any case, “sierra” is Spanish for “mountain” — and, as one Redditor put it, “dew is simply resting mist.”
Sierra Mist by no means actually caught on, and it underwent a variety of tweaks all through its historical past — in 2015, it was briefly renamed “Mist Twst” — earlier than Pepsi determined to drag the plug on it this 12 months.
And right here’s the ironic factor (wait, does Gen Z even do irony or is that reserved for Xers?): Starry’s tagline is perhaps “It hits completely different,” however the brand new soda truly comes throughout as nearly similar … to its rival, Sprite. As we tasted the 2 facet by facet, they have been nearly indistinguishable. Perhaps the Starry had a contact extra of vivid lime, notably on the end?
We additionally sampled the zero-sugar variations of each Starry and Sprite, which include aspartame. Although I admit, I’ve issue judging weight loss plan drinks since synthetic sugars scramble my style buds, it appeared that these two diverged greater than their real-sugared siblings — the Starry appeared a bit much less candy (once more, factor in my guide) with a chunk that helped offset the fake-sugar chemical twang.
Within the ongoing soda wars, eliminating the underperforming Sierra Mist and changing it with a Sprite taste-alike was most likely a no brainer technique for Pepsi. “It most likely is smart to discontinue the model after which possibly attempt one thing else that’s new to the market, which customers have a tendency to love,” Wedbush Securities analyst Gerald Pascarelli, told USA Today. “It’s a low threat transfer.”
Novelty, in spite of everything, has its enchantment — and Starry’s labeling has the sort of clean-lined emoji-adjacent graphic design that may catch the fickle eye of youth. However simply how far will it take the newcomer? The sort of customers the model is hoping to draw may simply establish with a line from Taylor Swift’s “Hits Totally different” — a observe Pepsi’s advertising wizards little question encountered when dreaming up the tagline — in relation to model loyalty: “Movin’ on was all the time straightforward for me to do.”
