Coke-Pepsi Slugf est

THE DAY COCA-COLA BEAT COCA-COLA blared the strange headline in a recent newspaper ad in Dallas. Starkly pictured beneath the message was the soft drink's familiar hourglass bottle flanked by two glasses, one marked M, the other Q. Thus opened what is becoming one of advertising's most bizarre feuds. It pits the nation's leading soft-drink maker, Coca-Cola, against its closest ranking competitor, Pepsi-Cola, in a taste bud to taste bud donnybrook that for sheer zaniness outdoes anything the ad world has seen in years.

The whole thing began more than 15 months ago, when Pepsi decided to challenge Coke's 3-to-l sales lead in the Dallas area. (Nationally, Coke is estimated to hold 26.2% of the market, compared with Pepsi's 17.4%.) Pepsi concocted a promotion supposedly showing that more than half the Coke drinkers tested preferred Pepsi's flavor when the two colas were stripped of brand identification. During the test, Coke was served in a glass marked Q and Pepsi in a glass marked M. Within a year Pepsi had whittled Coke's sales lead in Dallas to 2 to 1. Irritated, Coke officials conducted their own consumer-preference test --not of the colas but of the letters. Their conclusion: Pepsi's test was invalid because people like the letter M better than they like Q. Chicago Marketing Consultant Steuart H. Britt theorizes that Q is disliked because of the number of unpleasant words that begin with Q (quack, quitter, quake, qualm, queer...).

No Studies. To make its point. Coke put its own cola in both glasses --those marked M and those marked Q. Sure enough, most people tested preferred the drink in the M glass (hence the "Coke beat Coke" headline). Pepsi then revised the letters on its test glasses to S and L--and again consumers preferred Pepsi, which was always in the L glass. Again Coke executives cried foul, contending that just as people preferred M to Q, they liked L better than S. Questioned about this, Dr. Ernest Dichter, a motivational research expert, reported that he knew of no studies indicating a bias in favor of the letter L.

Thirsting for bigger sales, Pepsi extended its taste-test campaign to Michigan two months ago. And last week it moved into Los Angeles and New York, the country's richest markets, with the message: NATIONWIDE MORE COCA-COLA DRINKERS PREFER PEPSI THAN COKE. Anticipating the move, Coke had already launched a campaign with the theme NEW YORK PREFERS COCA-COLA TO PEPSI 2 TO 1.

The impact that the scrap is having on sales of the two soft-drink giants is so far inconclusive, and many Coke and Pepsi bottlers and some admen are upset about the battle. They worry that the confrontation will feed the public's cynicism about all advertising, attract unwanted attention from Government regulators, and sour consumer attitudes toward both drinks.

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