Economic · Educational

Cola Wars

A medium-weight strategy board game inspired by the real-life cola wars of the 1980s. Can you beat the real thing?

1–4 players120 minages 14

About the game

What is Cola Wars

A medium-weight strategy board game inspired by the real-life cola wars of the 1980s. Can you beat the real thing?

It’s the 1980s, and you’re in charge of marketing for a startup brand of cola. The game will last up to five years, starting in 1981, and each year ten market share tokens are up for grabs. The market share tokens get bigger as the soda market grows, so they get more valuable as the years go by. You track who's winning by placing market share tokens on a bar graph in the middle of the table. Whoever has the most market share at the end of the game wins!

The game is played on two battlefields: Head Space and Shelf Space. Head Space is about making your brand easy to think of. For example, you might want people to think of your brand when they think of Sports or Taste. Shelf Space is about making it easy to buy by improving its distribution in retailers like Fast Food and Movieplexes.

Just like in real-life marketing, consumers have the final say. At the end of every year, dice are rolled to determine what the consumer is thinking about and where they're shopping. Whoever is in the right Head Space and Shelf Space wins market share.

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