Zero. Zilch. Zip.

It’s the ultimate in diet thinking. And drinking.

Coca-Cola Zero. Diet Sprite Zero. All Sport Zero. Zero/Plus. Impulse Zero.

And, due soon, Fresca zero.

Not that zero calories or the absence of nutrients is anything new to dieters or drinks.

Neither Diet Coke nor Diet Pepsi has calories. And coffee and tea, which start out noncaloric, are among the world’s oldest drinks and remain among the most popular.

It’s the Z-word that marketers are latching onto: with zero calories, carbs or sugars. Virtually nothing at all but water, flavor and fizz.

Industry executives see zero appealing to their key demographic, the 18- to 34-year-olds whom firms such as beverage leader Coca-Cola desperately need to attract.

For many GenXers, the word “diet” has a bad taste – not to mention the aftertaste of aspartame, sucralose, saccharin and other low- and no-cal sweeteners.

This younger market, much of it male, gives some thought to calories but goes for taste first. Diet drinks are for fatties, for old folks, for the mature women who made Diet Coke the country’s No. 1 diet drink and third most popular soft drink overall.

New marketing formula

The new Coke Zero is the first attempt to adapt the classic Coke formula to a diet drink, using noncaloric sweetener blends that have a more natural taste, according to Scott Williamson, a spokesman for Coke North America. Coke Zero is sweetened with a blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium, or ace K.

In the already huge arena of bottled waters – a market that’s growing at about 15 percent a year – a wealth of flavors and nutrient/energy options are being added. And no one wants to add calories there either. Thus the launch of products such as Dasani Lemon, All Sport Zero and Zero/Plus by Monarch Beverage in Atlanta.

Actually, promoting “zero” seems to fit a basic principle articulated by marketing analyst Al Ries: Take a word, build it into a brand and “own it.”

But “zero” is not a word that appeals to Ries, author of “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (HarperBusiness, 2002).

“I don’t see ‘zero’ as an improvement over ‘diet.’ What is it? Zero taste?” said Ries, an Atlanta-based marketing strategist. “In Europe it’s called Coca-Cola Light because they don’t like to say it’s for fat people.

“They’d do better to focus on the authenticity of the taste, the fact that it’s the ‘Real Thing.’ “

There’s no plan to replace Diet Coke with Coke Zero. The company learned not to tamper with success back in 1985 with the “New Coke” fiasco.

Target group: Young men

Coke Zero gives consumers an option and plays to a hipper market. As AdAge.com notes: Young adults, notably men, want to stay trim, even diet. They just don’t want to use the disparaging D-word.

Besides, Coke already has seven cola varieties labeled “diet” in the United States. Add four high-calorie versions and one has to wonder whether they even know which is the “Real Thing” anymore.

“Coke has become very aggressive in exploiting all marketing possibilities, making some major introductions in the past year,” said Marvin Roffman, stock market analyst and president of Roffman Miller Associates, the Philadelphia-based money management firm. “The beverage industry in the United States has seen a dramatic slowdown. It’s gone from double-digit growth in the ’90s to low-single digits.

“Diet products are becoming the flagship products, where the growth is. Americans are consumed with concern over obesity.”

The high-sugar colas have declined consistently in sales and market share in recent years. The goal is to keep the “sugar drop-out” drinkers in the family, steering them to other Coke products.

In terms of both health and weight control, the best choices are water and teas, with no sweeteners. But few Americans are willing to give up sweetened drinks altogether, despite rampant obesity and studies that show a significant correlation between weight gain and high consumption of diet soft drinks.