Watch out, Dr. Pepper: Mr. Pibb is in the house.
After almost 25 years, Coca-Cola announced in late October that it’s bringing back Mr. Pibb, its spicy cherry soda that first launched in 1972. If you were born after the turn of the century, chances are you may have never seen a can of Mr. Pibb. That’s because, in 2001, Coca-Cola renamed and rebranded the drink to Pibb Xtra, and it’s remained largely untouched since then.
Now, Coca-Cola is giving Mr. Pibb another chance. The company is reformulating the beverage, adding extra caffeine, and giving the entire brand a makeover. Its new branding is a combination of burgundy, red, and black, complete with an eye-catching gold exclamation point and a few subtle callbacks to Mr. Pibb’s ’90s look. Mr. Pibb will fully replace Pibb Xtra across the U.S. by 2026, according to A.P. Chaney, Coca-Cola’s head of creative for sparkling flavors.
Mr. Pibb’s big return is Coca-Cola’s bid to cash in on the spicy cherry beverage category, which Chaney says is now the third-largest sparkling soft drink sector. With its added caffeine content, Mr. Pibb is also playing into the current interest in functional beverages—and the brand itself is adding a distinctly bold new voice to Coca-Cola’s portfolio.
A new, highly caffeinated contender enters the chat
Growing up in the ‘90s, Chaney remembers watching Mr. Pibb commercials on TV. Now that the spicy cherry segment is trending up, she says, “it felt like the perfect time” to introduce a new generation to the soda millenials and Gen Xers remember from yesteryear.
But the flavor profile isn’t quite the same as what it once was, either. Mr. Pibb’s new formulation is a “bolder version of what Pibb Xtra was,” according to Chaney. The drink—which will come in both regular and zero sugar iterations—is an intense cherry flavor layered with notes of caramel.
The real change to the drink’s composition is its added caffeine: Mr. Pibb will come with 30% more caffeine than Pibb Xtra, at 54 milligrams of caffeine per serving (about the same as a cup of coffee). It’s a move that reflects the fact that “functional” has become something of a buzzword in the beverage industry, wherein add-ins like prebiotics, adaptogens, and caffeine serve as added selling points for bringing a certain beverage into a customer’s daily routine.
“The caffeine is going to be a differentiator, specifically in this spicy cherry segment,” Chaney says.
Coca-Cola spices up Mr. Pibbs
The brand’s new look and voice are intended to call back to Mr. Pibb’s original identity, while also bringing new soda drinkers into the fold.
Mr. Pibb’s chunky, bold font is a reference to its ‘90s eras cans. Its burgundy, cherry red, and black color palette is also pulled from the brand’s original packaging. But one of the most striking elements of the can design is entirely new: a bright gold exclamation point in place of the “i” in “Pibb,” which Chaney explains is specifically engineered to grab shoppers’ attention in stores.
“We were really trying to cue what makes sense: Like, is it a formal Mr. Pibb or is it just Mr. Pibb, the homie? There were all these different personas we were trying to figure out,” Chaney says. “That comes through in the font—Mr. Pibb feels more accommodating and amicable in terms of the logo, but then you have the jagged edges that make it rebellious and bold, so you’re kind of bringing in these two different personalities.”
Mr. Pibb is a brand that’s not afraid to mess around and crack a few jokes—and that’s how fans can expect it to show up going forward.
“Coca-Cola is for everyone, as it should be, and it’s about uplift and it’s a beautiful and historic brand,” Chaney says. “Mr. Pibb is a challenger, and it’s an up-and-comer. We have more room to play in terms of how we show up and where we show up. We can make mistakes in ways that other brands can’t outside of Coca-Cola.”
Plenty of brands are actually playing into some level of marketing brashness lately, in a trend that Fast Company has previously termed “DGAF branding.” In an era when platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok are both shortening our attention spans and informing our collective senses of humor, it makes sense for brands like Nutter Butter, Duolingo, and Sour Patch Kids to take a few risks with their positioning.
It’s rarer to see a major legacy brand like Coca-Cola play into these internet-informed trends—and, to be clear, Mr. Pibb’s marketing is fairly tame compared to the aforementioned examples. Still, the Mr. Pibbs rebrand is clearly tapping into the zeitgeist by embracing a more unexpected sense of humor.
That spicy brand personality shines in a series of new ads for the soda. The team turned to old Mr. Pibb ads—which had a bold tone and often included the slogan, “Mr. Pibb: Put it in your head”—for inspiration. Chaney says that while most soda ads today focus solely on getting viewers to “fall in love with the liquid,” Coca-Cola wanted Mr. Pibb to have a bit more personality. She describes the spots’ tone as “like if Reese’s and Arby’s had a baby.”
In one spot with more than five million views on YouTube, narrated by actor Roy Wood, shots of Mr. Pibb are accompanied with the voiceover, “Most sodas call it at a reasonable hour. That’s when Mr. Pibb is just getting started. When Mr. Pibb texts, ‘U up?’ it’s not a question—it’s a promise.” Mr. Pibb, apparently, is a soda brand that’s not afraid to send a casual booty call.
