Surge (soft drink)
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Norway: 1996
International: 1997
reintroduced: 2008
Sprite
Mountain Dew
Vault
Mountain Dew MDX
Sun Drop
Surge was a citrus soft drink first introduced in Norway, under the name Urge (1996), by the Coca-Cola Company to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew.
[edit] History
In 1996, Coca-Cola decided to start producing Surge in the United States of America under the name Surge, although in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the name remained Urge. In the USA, the product did very well for the first few years, but eventually started to slip in sales. The Coca-Cola company has since ceased production of this beverage in the USA, Denmark and Sweden in 2001 and stopped making the syrup for fountains in 2002. Coca-Cola now makes Vault, a soda which contains many similar ingredients to Surge, and therefore has a very similar taste.
Norway is the only country where one can still buy this soft drink. Surge was widely associated with the extreme sports lifestyle, with television commercials similar to those currently used by Mountain Dew. Expired cans and bottles of Surge now sell on eBay for high dollar amounts, including a reported $160.08 for a 12-pack sold in April 2005.[1]
Since 2002, a community of Surge lovers have been built around savesurge.org. While Vault tastes similar to Surge, members of this community contend that its yellow color renders it an inferior beverage. The beginning of 2005 saw a campaign to bring Surge back to the shelves of Wal-Mart; according to savesurge.org, this resulted in Wal-Mart executives contacting Coca-Cola about bringing the drink back, but the soft drink company elected not to make a deal.
There are numerous urban legends about Surge. Chief among them is that Surge contains more caffeine than most other drinks. Some variations on this myth state that a serving of Surge contains more caffeine than two cups of coffee, and was discontinued due to the medical complications resulting from this fact. This is, however, false. Although Surge contains more caffeine than some soft drinks, it contains less than its closest analogue, Mountain Dew. According to Coca-Cola's customer service in Norway, Urge (the Norwegian equivalent) contains 45% more caffeine than Coca-Cola. In Norway, a 0.5L bottle of Coca-Cola contains 10mg of caffeine, while a bottle of Urge contains 14.5mg of caffeine.
Urge was originally available in Norway in 0.5L and 1.5L bottles. The 1.5L bottles were discontinued in 1999, but was recently reintroduced to the Norwegian market in September 1. 2008, in part due to a massive consumer campaign on Facebook.[2]
