Amazon.comHey, everyone! You can stop drinking 12-year-old cans of Surge soda that you've been hoarding in your basement since the early 2000s. You can buy fresh cans now!
The Coca-Cola company announced today that they will be re-launching the sale of Surge thanks in part to a "passionate and persistent community of brand loyalists."
Translation: a Facebook page that had over 120,000 members dedicated to bringing back Surge.
"They've inspired us," Racquel Mason, associate vice president of Coke sparkling flavors said in a statement. "More than 128,000 people a dozen years after a brand left the market saying, ‘Please bring it back!' That's the best compliment any brand could hope for. This is the ultimate test...we're leaving it in the hands of SURGE fans. Can 128,000 fans build and sustain a brand? We'll see."
Coco-Cola is selling the sugary, citrusy drink that was first available in 1996 exclusively on Amazon.com. There was a moment of sheer panic earlier today because the soda sold out almost immediately, but the stock has been replenished and the orders are no doubt continuing to pour in.
Evan Carr, Sean Sheridan and Matt Winans, the three men behind the Facebook Surge movement, have been trying to get the nostalgic drink back for years now. In 2013 they even raised $4,000 to buy a billboard right outside Coke's Atlanta headquarters that read: The copy read: "Dear Coke, we couldn't buy SURGE, so we bought this billboard instead."
Well, their tireless efforts worked because Surge is officially back. And if Facebook groups demanding the return of beloved food items can actually make them reappear on shelves (even digital ones), then we'd better get going on our "Bring Back Squeez-Its, Shark Bites and Rice Krispies Treats Cereal NOW" campaign.
Meanwhile, the "Bring Back Crystal Pepsi" Facebook page has only 3,258 members.