WITH THE MAN IN MIND; PEPSI MAKER SWITCHES TARGETS IN LAUNCHING ITS SECOND DIET COLA.

Byline: Chris Roush Bloomberg News

Pepsico Inc. will launch its $100 million marketing campaign today for new Pepsi One cola, which the company hopes will generate $1 billion in sales over the next 12 months.

Introducing Pepsi One is the biggest move to date for Pepsi's soda business under Phil Marineau, tapped one year ago to run the North America beverage operations of the world's No. 2 soft-drink company. He and Chief Executive Officer Roger Enrico have overhauled the beverage business, buying the Tropicana juice line from Seagram Co., introducing new packaging for their flagship soda and test-marketing a new lemon-lime soft drink.

The stakes are high for Pepsi. If Pepsi One, which uses the new sweetener acesulfame potassium, or Ace-K, is successful, it likely will take millions of dollars in sales away from rival Coca-Cola Co.'s Diet Coke. But the diet-drink category has lost some market share in the last seven years, and beverage experts question why Pepsi will have two diet colas on the market simultaneously. The experts worry that the new cola will cut into Diet Pepsi sales.

If Pepsi sells 150 million cases of Pepsi One in the first year, it will reach its $1 billion sales goal.Diet Pepsi sells 525 million cases a year.

To reach its target, Pepsi plans a marketing onslaught directed toward men, in contrast to other diet drinks that primarily target women. Commercials featuring film star Cuba Gooding Jr. will begin during Major League Baseball's World Series and air during shows with a big men's audience such as ``The X-Files'' and the National Football League playoffs.

The company also will open lounges in DeBartolo Corp. shopping malls across the country for men to sample Pepsi One and watch TV while their wives or girlfriends shop.

Still, diet colas have lost market share in the nation's $55 billion carbonated soft-drink industry every year since 1991. And Pepsi's other big risk is targeting men for Pepsi One while focusing Diet Pepsi on women, said beverage analysts, adding that Pepsi should keep to one diet cola.

``Around the world, companies have tried to sell soft drinks to males, and no one has done it successfully,'' Bevmark's Pirko said. ``You can't have Diet Pepsi going full bore along with Pepsi One without them canceling each other out.''

Pepsi's Fund said there's room for both sodas and noted that younger men are drinking fewer diet colas now than in 1990.

TOP SALES

Coca-Cola and Pepsico dominate the diet cola market in the U.S., and Pepsi is introducing another diet soda - Pepsi One - today.

RANK BRAND SHARE OF DIET DRINKS

1. Diet Coke 33.2%

2. Diet Pepsi 19.9%

3. Caffeine Free Diet Coke 6.9%

4. Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi 4.0%

5. Diet Dr. Pepper 3.5%

SOURCE: Beverage Marketing

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

PHOTO (Color) no caption (Pepsi ONE)

BOX: TOP SALES (see text)