Well yes they leveraged the enormous brand recognition of Coca-Cola, tho it took them 20 years to figure out they were not diluting it as the product line was p

Well yes they leveraged the enormous brand recognition of Coca-Cola, tho it took them 20 years to figure out they were not diluting it as the product line was previously branded as Tab [1]. The first ever ad, AFAICT, for Diet Coke introduces it as "you're gonna drink it just for the taste of it", implying it's different than Coca-Cola [2]. Also, notice how it's branded as "Diet Coke" (initially "diet Coke"), not "Diet Coca-Cola", and has a distinct packaging. Whereas the zero variant is branded as "Coca-Cola Zero", with the same packaging but inverted colors or black font. But they all taste like delicious over-sweetened fizzy drinks to me :) 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(drink) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(drink) 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRfcbkBmxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BRfcbkBmxo