• by Danielle Oster , February 20, 2025

Most consumers are continuing to buy soft drinks without concessions.

According to a 2025 outlook report on the category from data/research consultancy Big Chalk, 87% of consumers said they regularly purchase soft drinks -- a slight uptick since mid-2024 -- and Big Chalk anticipates that the category will “hold steady in 2025.”

“We’re seeing a lot of categories where consumers are showing a willingness to trade out of branded products [but] that's not happening in soft drinks” Big Chalk partner Rick Miller told Marketing Daily. “Coffee has so many weird offshoots, variants and blends, you might be willing to experiment. If you’re a Coke drinker, you tend to drink Coke. It’s harder for generics to break in,” he added, citing the soft drink category being less cost-prohibitive as another factor.

In fact, the number of consumers saying store brands were their “most frequently purchased brand of carbonated soft drink” declined from Q2 to Q4 last year by two percentage points, with just 6.8% of consumers most frequently purchasing generic brands in the most recent Big Chalk survey of 2,498 consumers.

“There’s brand resonance in this category,” Miller said. "In most categories, you are fighting store brand and private label products. That's not happening in soft drinks. That's really good if you're a brand manager.”

Coca-Cola and Dr Pepper appear to have won over more consumers in the back half of 2024. According to Big Chalk’s data, the number of consumers saying that Coca-Cola was their “most frequently purchased brand of carbonated soft drink” increased 2.9 percentage points over that span to 23.1%. The rate of consumers who said the same for Dr Pepper grew a notable four percentage points over the time period, to 13.3%. Pepsi remained relatively flat at 14%.

“The flavor profile of Dr Pepper is so different that I’m not sure they’re going to steal diehard fans away from either [Coca-Cola or Pepsi],” Miller said, “but Dr Pepper is being fairly aggressive in a lot of their marketing and branding, really leaning into sports partnerships, doing a lot to grow the brand.”

While the category as a whole may be showing resilience, there’s plenty of conflict within it.

Tthere's all these little brand-on-brand battles,” Miller said. “Because we’re not seeing huge growth in the category this year, the fight isn't to capture more of a growing pie. The fight now is to capture volume from other brands in the category.”

In addition to effective marketing, innovation is another “very important” factor, according to Miller. “You're not going to really steal market share in the soda category unless you're offering something unique enough to get a brand loyalist to try it,” he said.

So far this year, each of the three big soda brands have announced the launch of new flavors – with Coca-Cola’s Orange Cream launch the latest example. Last month, Pepsi announced the launch of Pepsi Wild Cherry & Cream as a “permanent” new flavor addition. And earlier this month, Dr Pepper parent company announced a series of new flavors across its cold beverage brand portfolio – including the launch of Dr Pepper Blackberry.

Miller called introducing a variety of new flavor profiles “really important,” but added, “The challenge is that its very expensive,” and something of a gamble – since there’s no guarantee a given flavor offering will succeed. Last year, Coca-Cola discontinued Coca-Cola Spiced, just seven months after introducing the “permanent” flavor addition.

The category’s predicted stability for 2025 also could be upended by potential macroeconomic volatility this year, including increased production costs due to aluminum tariffs, rising inflation, and potential for an economic downturn.

According to Big Chalk’s data, consumers’ overall scrutiny of their grocery budgets has been increasing, with the percentage who said they were “taking a closer look at their grocery spending” increasing from 51% to 55% from Q2 to Q4 last year.

“Grocery is not that discretionary, but soft drinks are,” Miller noted. ”If you're really fighting to stretch that grocery budget, you may have to cut back on soft drinks.”