New Coke wasn't a failure. It let Coca-Cola Corp rebrand it's 1984ish US market reformulation of The-Brown-Drink using high-fructose corn syrup as "Coca-Cola Classic."<p>At the time, journalists followed the PR thread and nobody noticed that Coca-Cola Classic wasn't what Coca-Cola had been prior to the 1980's. Wasn't The-Brown-Drink that kept losing The Pepsi Challenge. HFCS was the future and New Coke was the smoke screen that Coca Cola Corp obscured maneuvers.