It's a game of more bubble for your bucks

Marketing chiefs at Coca-Cola's head office in Atlanta are said to be working on a vanilla-flavoured version of its core soft drink, described as the biggest innovation in the world's most valuable brand in almost 20 years.

The plans are the first fruits of an attempt to put some fizz back into Coke. The brand and the wider business have suffered a lacklustre couple of years, largely because of a morale-sapping internal reorganization of the company.

The Coca-Cola group lost 0.4% of crucial US market share, falling to 43.7% last year; it also suffered a 0.2% fall in sales, according to trade magazine Beverage Digest. Pepsi-Co gained 0.2% of market share, giving it 31.6% of the US soft drinks market and sales up by 1.3%.

Things have begun to look up for Coke. The group was buoyed up by its sponsorship of the Winter Olympics, an event that gained surprisingly good ratings in the US. A lemon-flavoured version of Diet Coke, launched last year, also proved popular. Last week, the group raised its sales forecasts for the first quarter to between 4% and 5%, and expects to have regained momentum in North America.

Coke’s shares are at half the level they were in 1998 but have rallied since the beginning of the year. They have climbed from $44 to almost $53. The emphasis on new brand development and the fresh shake-up in Atlanta have impressed Wall Street, and both Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers raised their ratings on the group last week.

In the US, at least, there is little or no growth to be had in the cola market without some innovation.

Sales of both the core Coke and Pepsi cola brands have been faltering in recent years. Coke volumes fell by 2% last year and Pepsi dropped by 2.8%. The diet versions of both colas improved sales, but not by enough to make up the deficit.

With consumers becoming more health conscious, sweet fizzy stuff is losing share to plain old bottled water. But even there, Pepsi has been more nimble. It was faster to spot the growth than its competitor and is ranked number two in the US bottled water market after Perrier. Coke lies third.

• fizz - energy • look up - get better

• lacklustre - disappointing • buoyed up - encouraged

• morale-sapping - discouraging • nimble - quick-moving

7. Find words or phrases in the text above with the same meaning as the following:

1. a particular form of something (para. 1)

2. main (para. 1)

3. re-arranging the structure inside the company (para. 2)

4. recovered (para. 5)

5. re-organization, major change (para. 5)

6. loss, shortfall (para. 7)

8. According to the text, are the following true or false?

	True	False
Sales of the core Coca-Cola and Pepsi brands have risen steadily recently. Coca-Cola is planning an expansion of its product range. The two companies’ main priority seems to be to increase their market share. Demand for cola seems to have reached a peak. The two companies are engaged in a price war. Coke's share price has shown an improvement this year. The Coca-Cola group’s sales turnover has increased while Pepsi's has fallen.	      	      