Graphic: Elena Scotti (Photos: Getty Images, eBay, The Coca-Cola Company)
Tab, launched in 1963, emerged as a striking soda in a textured glass bottle adorned with Space Age motifs. An early advertisement in Mademoiselle featured an elegant hand adorned with bracelets, enticingly reaching for the drink from a peacock chair. The tagline asked, “Doesn’t it make sense to be refreshed with sensible, modern Tab?” Positioned as Coca-Cola’s first diet soda, it primarily targeted women, promising a transformative experience for their bodies.
In October, as Coca-Cola announced Tab’s discontinuation, their press release claimed that eliminating the brand would “reshape” and “streamline” the company. This decision hardly came as a surprise; Tab contributed merely 1 percent of Coca-Cola’s sales in recent years. The company historically invested little in Tab, largely due to its primary appeal to women. It was eventually packaged in a bright pink can and supported by advertising that emphasized feminist ideals, which consequently narrowed its market appeal. While beverage companies have often relied on female consumers of diet products, they have continuously sought a broader audience, particularly men.
Though brands have aimed for higher sales, they frequently struggled to redefine the purpose of diet drinks beyond promoting the image of slim women. This limitation often rendered their marketing efforts ineffective.
While Tab is a well-known diet soda, it was preceded by Diet Rite Cola, introduced in 1958 by the Royal Crown Company. Originally developed for diabetics, Diet Rite offered a calorie-free option, first marketed alongside medicinal products. However, as the demand for weight loss options grew—evidenced by the founding of Weight Watchers in 1963—advertising shifted to highlight Diet Rite as the “Feel All Right” soda.
Sweetened with cyclamate and saccharin, Diet Rite allowed consumers to enjoy a cola without sugar. Carolyn Thomas, in her history of artificial sweeteners, described this experience as “indulgent restraint”—the ability to partake in sweet flavors without the guilt of calories or other adverse effects. This idea unsettled the sugar industry, which countered by promoting sugar as an “energy lift” and a lower-calorie alternative to traditional diet-friendly foods. Diet Rite’s advertising responded with witty remarks such as, “Guilty of upsetting the sugar cart? We plead guilty,” and “Have you tried the taste that’s got the sugar daddies howling mad?”
In 1958, diet options accounted for under 1 percent of soft drink sales, yet Diet Rite quickly ascended to become the fourth best-selling soda within 18 months of its national launch. As a result, competitors hastily introduced their own options. Following its “Project Alpha” initiative, Coca-Cola launched Tab in 1963, coinciding with Pepsi’s introduction of Patio, which was later renamed Diet Pepsi in 1964. Coca-Cola’s Fresca debuted in 1967.
These sodas were not solely marketed to women. For instance, Diet Rite targeted women, men, and children alike, promoting its “delicious” taste over its low calorie count, thus appealing to health-conscious families. A 1960s ad campaign playfully asked, “Who’s drinking all that Diet Rite Cola?” with women expressing surprise at their families consuming it because it was the “best tasting cola of all.” In 1969, Diet Rite featured celebrities such as Twiggy, Lena Horne, and John Havlicek of the Boston Celtics, emphasizing its appeal to non-dieters.
Citrus-flavored Fresca similarly attracted a wider audience, promoting its “frosty taste” with slogans like “It’s a blizzard.” In contrast, Pepsi heavily marketed Patio to women, featuring TV fitness personality Debbie Drake, who emphasized that Patio Diet Cola was “Great to your waist.”
Throughout its history, Tab often targeted women with its messaging around weight loss and narrow definitions of femininity. The “Be a Mindsticker” campaign, now perceived as unsettling, urged women to drink Tab to “stay in his mind with a shape he can’t forget.” Despite this emphasis on body ideals, Tab also focused on taste. Some ads posed the question, “How can just one calorie taste so good?” while billboards claimed, “Tab tastes better than any diet cola.”
Initially, the combination of cyclamate and saccharin gave diet sodas a taste resembling sugar. However, the FDA banned cyclamate in 1969 over concerns regarding its link to bladder tumors in rats. This led to a reformulation of many diet sodas, resulting in products that were sweet but did not mimic the taste of sugar accurately.
Despite these challenges, fans of Tab in recent decades have described its flavor as crisp, clean, citrusy, and nostalgically tart with a hint of bubblegum. Others have referred to it as “very, very sweet, with the aftertaste of furniture polish.” Rather than simply being a no-calorie alternative to other sodas, Tab stood out as its own unique creation, maintaining a loyal following for decades.
Coca-Cola remembers Tab as a “cultural icon in the 1980s.” However, the brand’s decline began in that era. Media scholar George Plasketes characterized Tab as a “stepchild” and “a clinging orphan,” suggesting it was kept alive on “life support” and gradually pushed towards extinction. Despite marketing efforts throughout the late 1970s and 1980s to present Tab as “the beautiful drink for beautiful people,” these attempts to attract men proved largely unsuccessful. The brand’s campaigns increasingly focused on women, adopting slogans like “Tab’s got sass” and “Body by Tab.”
Unlike Tab, Diet Coke was designed for a mixed audience, appealing to both men and women who valued health and fitness as part of a “yuppie” lifestyle in the 1980s. Coca-Cola executives believed that men would shy away from Tab due to its long-standing feminine branding, but would be receptive to Diet Coke, which was marketed as being “incidentally” low-calorie. They understood that launching Diet Coke in 1982 might cannibalize some of Tab’s market share, yet proceeded anyway. Diet Coke debuted with ads insisting, “You’re gonna drink it just for the taste of it,” and by the end of 1983, it had become the nation’s leading diet soft drink.
While Coca-Cola actively pursued male consumers with Diet Coke, societal attitudes often regarded the beverage as too feminine over the years. An executive from Coca-Cola once stated that “diet” is a “four-letter word” among men aged 16-24, further motivating the company to design another male-friendly diet soda.
From the outset, the development and marketing of diet sodas have emphasized flavor. Since the 1990s, however, Coca-Cola revisited its sweeteners to launch flavor-forward options like Coke Zero, tailored for male consumers. The company presumed that men sought fuller, more satisfying flavors compared to the sometimes disappointing aftertastes accepted by women from diet drinks. Consequently, Coca-Cola adjusted Diet Coke’s formulation with aspartame while Coke Zero combined aspartame with acesulfame potassium, known as “Ace-K,” to provide a sweeter flavor and fuller mouthfeel closer to real sugar.
Launched in 2005, Coke Zero’s success prompted other brands to revamp their diet sodas, leading to a reformulated Diet Mountain Dew in 2006, Diet Pepsi Max in 2007, and Dr. Pepper Ten in 2011.
While Coca-Cola aimed to attract male consumers with Coke Zero, Diet Coke embraced its feminine identity over the past four decades. Whitney Houston, Paula Abdul, and Demi Moore starred in Diet Coke advertisements infused with feminine charm during the 1980s and 1990s. In 2013, Taylor Swift appeared as the brand ambassador in a series of flirtatious ads. That same year, Marc Jacobs served as Diet Coke’s Creative Director, celebrating its thirtieth anniversary with a trio of whimsical can designs that were “feminine, colorful, and fun.”
However, in 2018, Diet Coke attempted to rebrand yet again. Coca-Cola launched a reformatted version, supported by its first Super Bowl commercial in twenty-one years. This rebranding emerged from extensive research and was necessitated by declining sales in the soft drink market. In 2016, six of the top nine diet sodas experienced a sales slump, including the long-popular Diet Coke. Coca-Cola executives noted a transition to reposition Diet Coke from a women’s diet beverage to a “contemporized” millennial product appealing to both genders.
Yet, Diet Coke has struggled to break free from its feminine past, a fact highlighted in a March 2020 commercial titled “Drink What Your Mama Gave Ya.” In this ad, two young men share a table, and upon one taking a sip of Diet Coke, the other jokingly asks, “Diet Coke? Who are you, my mom?” The ad then transitions into a nostalgic tribute to 1980s mothers, clad in colorful attire. Despite best efforts to reimagine itself as a unisex millennial beverage, Diet Coke’s advertising continues to evoke an earlier era that is closely tied to the story of Tab.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DANLxEGPwj0
While Tab has its share of male consumers—Marty McFly even ordered one in Back to the Future—its mainstay remained a niche demographic of college-educated, middle-class women focused on weight management. Though Tab once held nostalgic charm for a small audience of younger enthusiasts, broader societal trends have shifted. Today’s consumers prioritize wellness and self-care over restrictive dieting. Rather than Tab, many now opt for sparkling water flavored with “natural essences.” As this chapter in diet soda history draws to a close, Tab serves as a poignant reminder of how brands like Coca-Cola have long understood and marketed to women, leaving behind a complex legacy.
Emily Contois, PhD is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at The University of Tulsa. She is the author of Diners, Dudes, and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture and the co-editor of a book on food Instagram.
