Sierra Mist is a renewed attempt by Pepsi to garner a portion of the very popular lemon-lime market, which as of 2005 was the second-highest selling soft drink only behind cola. The company's previous attempt, Slice, had largely failed against the dominant Sprite and 7 Up. Although Pepsi owns the marketing rights to 7 Up in many countries, particularly Canada, it was in the enormous US market that Pepsi needed to compete.
Pepsi began selling a drink known as Storm in 1998 to test in some markets. The drink was primarily lemon-lime, but some consumers thought it tasted too much like a hybrid between lemon-lime and Pepsi's own Mountain Dew. In 2000, Pepsi reformulated Storm and changed its name to Sierra Mist. A Diet Sierra Mist was introduced during this time as well. The product was sold in two thirds of the continental US and had better sales success compared with Storm. In 2002, just two years after hitting the market, the drink had a redesigned package resembling itself more like a lemon-lime drink.
To coincide with Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003 and a national ad campaign, Pepsi rolled out Sierra Mist to the parts of the US that did not already have it, thus making the drink a national brand. Sierra Mist has been a huge sales success for Pepsi, having surpassed 7 Up in sales and is even perceived to be more promoted compared with its sister brand, Mountain Dew. Like Dew, the drink tends to target young males. In 2005, Diet Sierra Mist was renamed Sierra Mist Free, in an ode to the 1980s non-caffeinated Pepsi drink Pepsi Free (now known as Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi). The newly-renamed soda had an ad campaign at launch that featured people stealing Sierra Mist Free, citing that they thought the soda was, like its name declares, "free". They would then get corrected (usually by an actor playing a detective in an interrogation room) that only the taste is "free" - from sugar, caffeine, and calories. Sierra Mist and Sierra Mist Free received updated logos in early 2006.
Recently, Sierra Mist has come under fire by the Environmental Working Group for containing traces of benzene. This occurs when two of the ingredients, potassium benzoate and ascorbic acid, combine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to comment about this issue.
