Marketing Mistakes I Find Hard to Understand

After the New Coke marketing disaster, I found it hard to believe that Coke have done it again with their energy drink: Mother. Coke is trying hard to crack the huge energy drink market but have found it tough to compete against the strength of Red Bull and V.

In case you missed it, they've recently relaunched the drink with a flavour that "tastes nothing like the old one". From wikipedia...

In June 2008, after 18 months on the market, Coca-Cola Amatil announced a reformulation and relaunch of Mother , with the new product being available to retailers from July 1st. Changes announced include a new taste ("extensively researched with consumers"), a larger 500ml can, change of colour from aluminium silver to black and a $3 million marketing campaign. The primary focus of both the campaign and the new packaging is the reformulated taste of the drink, proclaimed on the packaging as 'NEW - TASTES NOTHING LIKE THE OLD ONE!' The new taste is now more similar to other competing products, such as Red Bull

Now what they're implying here is that very few people liked the old flavour. What I struggle to understand is how did they ever release a drink with a flavour apparently nobody liked in the first place? Surley a company like Coke would have done EXTENSIVE research before ever launching the drink in the first place? ...