I'm not sure why, but I've been thinking a lot about OK Soda this morning. It's been about a decade and a half since it was available to buy in limited test markets, since it disappeared as quickly as it showed up. But I liked the stuff a lot... it was like a "suicide," that yummy weirdness you get from mixing all the fountain drinks together at a convenience store.
But the reason OK Soda is legendary is because of the way it was sold. In 1994, the Coca-Cola Company used slogans and art and marketing concepts that were specifically designed to appeal to "Generation X" types (like me) who had grown up bombarded with sales messages, enough to become cynical about consumerism. It was all very awkward, a zillion-dollar company attempting to speak the language of the disaffected commoner. The populace rebelled. But in this society, "rebellion" means don't buy it and complain.
The company would learn from its mistake quickly enough, and exact horrible revenge. In 1995, Coca-Cola used one of its established brands, Sprite lemon-lime soda, to launch the tagline "Image is Nothing, Taste is Everything... Obey Your Thirst." They signed then-hot NBA star Grant Hill to an endorsement contract, and promptly made him into an anti-endorser. Don't drink it because celebrities do, came the campaign's message. Drink it because you like it. The consumer, after all, is by far the best judge of a product's worthiness.
Less than a year after the OK Soda campaign ended up DOA, this particular concept took off. It's been used to sell Sprite for the last 13 years.
There's a lot more CGI in television advertisements now, but not much else has changed since then. Gigantic corporations with non-essential products to sell are still out of new ways of convincing people that their products are somehow essential. Celebrity endorsements, competitive comparisons and sex are as questionably effective as they were in 1995. Even the idea that product consumption will advance a consumer beyond simple consumer status doesn't work anymore. We've all heard it before, heard it a million times.
The most effective, compelling message in the world to the disenfranchised or otherwise powerless is this: You are better, smarter and wiser than those who hold power. In more volatile and less comfortable times and places, this is a message that gives slaves, peasants and commoners the confidence they need to displace those who would keep them down in lower stations. In modern America, it's a message that can be used by the rich to keep the poor entertained, consuming, and too content and soft to examine the manipulation, much less riot in the streets.
And this is why I hate Sprite, the American version of The Office, Green Day, Ron Paul, and anyone or anything else that gets rich off convincing audiences of the audience's superiority to its superiors. The relative rich telling the relative poor that they're smarter than bosses and celebrities and politicians and leaders -- and turning a profit while they're doing so -- is just about the most cynical, despicable metaphorical handjob I can think of.
But anyway, I hope you'll all join me in drinking a toast to spectacular corporate failure. Trust me, this stuff is delicious.
1 part orange soda
3 parts flat cola
a splash of Dr. Pepper
