Zyman's work experience includes tenures with
Coca-Cola,
PepsiCo, and
Procter & Gamble, and his own firm
Zyman Group. He is also known for helping introduce
Diet Coke in 1982 and conceiving
Fruitopia in 1994. After leaving the Coca-Cola Company, Zyman launched a
consulting firm called the Zyman Group, which he sold to
MDC Partners Inc., a Canadian advertising firm
holding company, for around $60 million in April 2005. He was replaced there as Chairman by Scott Miller, formerly with
McCann Erickson. The Zyman Group is no longer in business. Zyman later served as a director of Upstream Worldwide, the
parent company of
uSell.com, but he has been replaced there and is no longer on the Executive Team. He then worked with
JC Penney as a Marketing Consultant but left after the failed re-positioning of the chain.
New Coke A cover story in
Fortune Magazine from May 1, 1995 referred to
New Coke as the biggest marketing blunder since the launch of
Ford's
Edsel.
New Coke was a reformulation of the original
Coca-Cola flavor. After significant consumer opposition, the original flavor was reintroduced after 77 days.
Fortune Magazine reported: Zyman, then head of U.S. marketing, was coming off his enormously successful introduction of Diet Coke when he was assigned day-to-day responsibility for top-secret Project Kansas in 1984. The zealous Mexican insisted that Coca-Cola (or Co-Coola, as he pronounces it) must act boldly to reverse its 20-year market-share decline vs. Pepsi. Zyman, a former Pepsi marketer, argued that the correct strategy was to replace 98-year-old Coke with a better-tasting cola, label it
New Coke," and blare the news--which is exactly what the company did. Zyman's greatest error was that he and his team failed to present the option of keeping old Coke on the market. ==Published works==