The
conspiracy theory, which is far-fetched at best, goes something like
this:
Coca-Cola wanted to slightly change the time-honored formula of their
original product. We'll call the original Coke A and we'll call what they
wanted to change it to Coke B. They know that if they make the change
directly, people would notice. So, they concoct some awful-tasting
soda (New Coke, or Coke C in this story) and replace Coke A with it.
They stay with Coke C until all traces of Coke A are out of the marketplace
and out of people's homes. Now, "bowing down" to popular demand,
they then replace Coke C with Coke B, NOT Coke A. An interesting
note is that this version was (and still is) marketed as "Coca-Cola Classic,"
not simply as "Coke." Coca-Cola will tell you this
is because they intended to still sell New Coke and didn't want consumers
to get confused, but we know that it's really because it
was a different product than the original Coke A. No one's had the
original Coke A for a year or so, and so the memory of what Coke A was
has faded just enough for no one to realize that Coke B is not actually
Coke A. Thus, the switch is complete, and the original Coke A hasn't
been sold since 1985.
It's probably complete tripe, but it's funny.