We are in an interesting branding discussion here.
Consumer brands often, as is the case with Pepsi, appealing to people from childhood to death. But the manufacturer, in its role as advertiser, only targets the consumers that will provide, both now and in the more immediate future, the most sales... the biggest return on dollars spent.
So even if Pepsi knew, back towards the 80's, that while older folks drank Pepsi, still they did not enlist Andy Williams or Frank Sinatra to do their ads. They picked Michael Jackson. And they gained on Coke and produced a real Pepsi Generation of younger consumers who found Pepsi to be hip, modern, cool. Not the older folks who thought of Pepsi as a cheap alternative to Coke. They sold gallons of product, and created greater immediate demand and a refreshed image.
Radio stations can't appeal to the kids-to-death demo. There are many of them and each takes a slice. So to maintain that market segment, every ounce of research, programming skill and management focus is put on superserving the age group that will make money for the station. Nobody in radio minds having younger listeners or ones older than the target, but we know that "spillage" can't be monetized. So we are in a constant refresh mode to both wipe out "old" images (like Pepsi being cheap and inferior) and to create appeal to new consumers... those at the young side of the target... because those listeners will be of value for at least a decade if not more.
Why did new Coke fail? They were worried about the growth of Pepsi after Pepsico refreshed the brand's image. They tried to appeal to Pepsi drinkers without considering how absolutely furious the Coke stalwarts would be. Failure is not a strong enough word. They ignored the core, the heavy users, instead of doing better advertising and merchandising. New Coke was the equivalent of putting museum songs on early-to-mid-80's based KRTH. No gain, and a bunch of pissed off core listeners.
