It’s the 1980s, and you’re in charge of marketing for a startup brand of cola. The market is completely dominated by the evil CorpoCola. Over the next few years, you’ll run advertising, snag shelf space, and play a few sneaky tricks to try to control the market. Will you come out on top — or will CorpoCola reign supreme?
Objective
Cola Wars is played over six years, from 1980 to 1985. Each player is trying to win the most market share points by the end of the game. But if CorpoCola wins the most market share points, everyone else loses.
Premise
Cola Wars is fought on two battlefields: mind share and shelf share.
Mind share is about making sure that your brand of soda is easy to think of. After all, if people don’t think of your soda, they won’t remember to buy it.
Shelf share is about making sure that your brand of soda is easy to buy. If consumers can’t find your soda, they won’t buy it.
You win market share points by controlling mind share and shelf share.
Gameplay
Every turn, you play an Executive.
Executives can perform actions like running advertising campaigns, buying sponsorships, running sampling programs, or negotiating for shelf space in stores and restaurants. You can also send them on retreats so they come first in the turn order next year.
Alongside your Executives, you may also play Secret Formula cards that give you powerful abilities to gain an edge over your fellow players and CorpoCola.
Once all players have finished playing their Executives and Secret Formula cards, the Consumer dice are rolled in the Vending Machine dice tower to allocate market share points. Consumers are hard to predict — that’s why it’s important to own as many shelves and memories as you can.
About the project
Cola Wars is an early-stage medium weight strategy board game designed by me. It’s my first board game design.
About me
Cameron Fleming is an advertising strategist with more than 16 years of experience in advertising agencies in New York and Toronto. I started my career as a copywriter, writing ads for brands including Nikon, American Airlines, Six Flags, Mastercard and yes, very briefly, a certain fizzy drinks company. I also drink far more diet soda than is reasonable.