Coke vs. Pepsi

The United States soft drink obsession is dominated by Coke and Pepsi products. There is no doubt that these two companies are geniuses in marketing. Coke and Pepsi battle it out in taste tests and consumer satisfaction, seemingly trying to persuade their buyers about the better product. However, the ingenuity of these companies does not lay in their taste tests or consumer satisfaction. It relies in their polarization of the product. Consider this: Can you name any other soft drink company? Sure, grocery stores offer house brands. However, Coke and Pepsi not only dominate the world of soft drinks, they insinuate that it is either Coke or Pepsi- and nothing else.
If our choice is solely between Coke and Pepsi, then there should be a clear winner. Is it Coke? Or is it Pepsi? It's debatable. Both companies are highly profitable. Oddly enough, both companies have survived significant product failures...
In the late 1980's Coke launched a product called "New Coke" that was a complete marketing failure. New Coke should have been enough of a failure to let Pepsi grasp the reins of success, but it wasn't. Pepsi released Crystal Pepsi shortly after the New Coke fiasco. It failed miserably as well. Coke and Pepsi failed to properly analyze their audience, therefore failing to properly establish ethos.
I decided to take a closer look at the ethos behind New Coke and Crystal Pepsi. Coke hired Bill Cosby, the comedian of the decade, to endorse the product. Here is one of his commercials:

 Coke succeeded in hiring Bill Crosby. He asserts himself as an expert on Coca-cola. Bill Cosby was an excellent choice to represent the product.
In contrast, Pepsi used another facet of ethos. In one commercial, they interview everyday people about their reactions to Crystal Pepsi. These testimonials appeal to credibility of the product. Here is the commercial:



The success of these new products was minimal. Both New Coke and Crystal Pepsi had short lives on the shelves across America. Both companies failed to analyze their buying audience, yet succeeded in utilizing expertise and credibility in their ads. This is a great example of the complexity of ethos because we can succeed but ultimately fail, just like New Coke and Crystal Pepsi.
...Despite these failures, Coke and Pepsi remain the "super powers" of the soft drink world. What are your thoughts?