in the early years of the 21st century, growth in soft drink sales for both coke and pepsi was falling short of precedent and of investor's expectations. Was the fundamental nature of the cola wars changing? was a new form of rivalry emerging that would entail reduced profitability and stagnant growth-both inconceivable under the old form of rivalry? or did the change under way represent simply another step forward in the evolution of two of the world 's most successful companies? in 2000, a coke executive noted, the cola wars are going to be played now across a lot of different battlefield. what remamed unclear in 2006 was whether those wars were still about cola, and whether anyone know for certain where those battlefield were located.