Don Keough, who played a pivotal role in helping guide Coca-Cola during the leadership of legendary chairman Robert Goizueta, died early Tuesday with his wife Mickie and family at his side. He was 88.
As the company’s president and chief operating officer, Keough was instrumental during the “cola wars” in the mid-80s when the beverage giant replaced Coca-Cola’s 99-year-old formula with a new version. It became marketing legend, both for how badly it bombed and how artfully the company reacted.
Coca-Cola had tested New Coke, as it came to be called, with more than 190,000 people before launching the new flavor in 1985, but the company’s switchboards lit up with thousands of calls from irate consumers. Others hoarded cases of the original formula or boycotted Coca-Cola.
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