TaB and the computer that named it

When I told you about TaB’s birthday (happy number 45!), I mentioned that -- as a diet drink -- the brand was ahead of its time.

Well, TaB was actually ahead of its time in another way. When it was introduced in 1963, computers weren’t a part of our everyday lives.

However, a computer is the reason for TaB’s name. When TaB was created, Coca-Cola had just installed a new Mainframe computer. We wanted to try out the potential of this new technology (and it was new at the time!) and had the computer create a list of all three- and four-letter combinations that could be pronounced as words in English.

In 30 minutes, we had 300,000 possibilities.

From there, Coke employees took over and went through the names, removing names that were already taken, didn’t sound good or otherwise couldn’t (or shouldn’t) have been the name for our first diet soft drink.

Coke wanted a name that was easy to remember, distinct and conveyed a good image. We got it with our final choice -- TaB.