I want to try something new, exciting, fresh, and sparkling! I'm going to write everything I can about the cola wars (Coke v Pepsi) in thirty minutes or less without any preparation or outline. This will surely be one of the greatest posts of all time! Let me know, when you are done reading, which cola you prefer, and why? Let's make this go viral baby! Feel free to comment about other favorite sodas like Welch's Grape, Mello Yello, Ramblin' Rootbeer, Hi-C, Hawaiian Punch, Country Time, and so on.
This article (linked below on Yahoo) claims that Dr. Pepper has surpassed Pepsi recently as the second-most popular soda in the world! Coca-Cola Classic is still first. Dr. Pepper is second. Loser Pepsi is third! Pepsi are total losers! This just in -- Pepsi officially loses cola war!
Here's the article:
Why does this make me so happy? Obviously because Coca-Cola has always been a genius advertiser and because I have come to believe that Pepsi is a second-hand sinister organization. It's funny how these two products, very similar, can evoke such different emotions, based purely on advertising and anecdotal emotion. Pepsi is Darth Vader and the Emperor, Coca-Cola is Yoda and Luke. Pepsi is the USSR, Coca-Cola is the USA. Coca-Cola is Harry Potter; Pepsi is Lord Voldemort.
My family was a Coca-Cola family. When I see a bottle of Coca-Cola, it creates in me a similar feeling to seeing the American flag or French flag, or the Dallas Cowboys helmet, or the Utah Jazz purple home jersey. I feel warm and fuzzy and cozy and protective and protected. Coca-Cola is an American emblem, like the blessed eagle (did you ever see that weird ad for glasses where boxing announcer Jim Lampley keeps saying "the eagle [the real eagle] is blessed with tiny drops of lubricant in its eyes" and then he compares the eye of the eagle to this weird new set of eyeglasses for old timers???)
Yeah, Coca-Cola baby, IT'S THE REAL THING!! I have always believed that Coca-Cola is the most refreshing substance I can put in my body, it can restore me to perfect health, rest and refreshment. It's even better for the human body than chemotherapy, baby! Not only that, it will make me more sexually appealing. It will even give my body glistening drops of sweat that don't stink, in a mostly sexy way, as if I were a pro athlete with tanned glowing rich red-rich skin that the camera would close in on as I pitched a perfect 9th inning or kicked the winning PK in the World Cup. Plus it's DELICIOUS! You know how beads of sweat are either super gross or super sexy? Well, Coke gives you the sexy delicious kind!! Your sweat will taste like cold soda and smell like peaches!
When you go to the movie theater and they run the ad with the "fizz" sound of the Coke opening and then pouring into the glass of ice. Yeah, you know what I mean. That makes me sweat and pee like a pig. I need it so bad. I've been conditioned to want that substance in my body, in my hand. It's so funny to be subject to the power of marketing.
I cry with joy to look upon the perfect red-and-white can with its brilliant calligraphy and design. So simple, so powerful, so perfect. I want to be a spokesperson for Coca-Cola. I want Coca-Cola to know they have improved my life in every way. I want to have a Coca-Cola in my hand at every moment, at work, at home, at play. I want to live inside of a cold bottle of Coca-Cola, I want to BE the fizz! I want my atomic structure to resemble that of Coca-Cola. I want to live and die for cold soda! I want to live in a universe where soda is the only molecule permitted to exist. I want to live inside the vintage Coke ads where everything was simple, beautiful, and attainable.
Coke is red-and-white and Pepsi is red-white-blue. I should prefer red-white-blue, right, given those are the colors of the American flag? Why do I think that Coca-Cola is better? I obviously think it takes delicious, and WAY better than Pepsi. But Coca-Cola is red and white, more like the USSR flag or more like the Japanese flag. So I would prefer normally the Pepsi colors, right?? No, because marketing is so powerful, you can fall in love with something even though it makes no sense.
One time in health class in 9th grade at South Davis Junior High, Ms. Southwick (the teacher) brought in a 2-liter bottle of Pepsi and a 2-liter bottle of Coke, and she did the "taste test" thing with paper cups all around the room for all the students. We were supposed to say which one we liked best. Then at the end she told us all the cola was from the same brand, but she didn't tell us which brand. So to this day I know two things: (1) I couldn't tell the difference between the two; AND (2) I still enjoyed more what I thought was Coke than what I thought was Pepsi, even though, to this day, I don't know what the substance actually was. Was it Shasta Cola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My brother and I also loved R.C. Cola back in the 70's. My great-great-grandfather was a man named R.C. Knell, which stood for Robert Charles Knell. He was primarily raised in and lived in the small town of Pinto, Utah, near Newcastle, Utah, which is west of Cedar City, Utah. As kids my twin brother and I would collect aluminum cans for recycling as our source of income. We were poor, in our minds, and picking up aluminum cans for recycling was necessary for our Bazooka gum addiction. We'd take our doll and go to Circle K and load up on Bazooka gum. Anyway, during summer vacations in Cedar City and Newcastle, my twin Eric and I would raid garbage cans and dumpsters and even, yes, the small city dump in Newcastle, and we'd pick out all the aluminum cans we could find. R.C. Cola, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, 7-Up Budweiser, Coors, Schlitz, Olympia (probably my favorite can to find). We'd smash up the cans and recycle them and get, in return, something like $17.00. Man, when we saw an aluminum can in a garbage can it was like finding gold, our eyes would light up.
For a time I believed that R.C. Cola was named after my great-grandfather R.C. Knell. So naturally I favored this drink, even more than Coca-Cola, plus the R.C. Cola can was super cool and it made my heart throb like hearing the band Chicago sing while I watched my girlfriend comb her hair. Later I came to my senses and realized that R.C. Cola was too sweet and not worthy of being compared to Pepsi or Coke, although I still have a powerful attachment to the name R.C.
Arby's sold R.C. Cola for a long time, refusing to do the Pepsi v Coke thing. Remember Burger King preferred Pepsi and McDonald's preferred Coke??? Eventually all the stores had to pick their sides but then we humans evolved and started drinking 89 oz. mugs from the gas station so we could get whatever we wanted.
OK, look at these pictures closely!
I'm going to give you all a marketing lesson. It's FREE. So pay attention. You know what Pepsi did wrong? They went with the white can! Terrible mistake. Even though they had red, white, and blue, white was the dominant color. The color of surrender, of passively giving up and dying. Coke was always a bold red color.
Pepsi eventually adapted and picked a blue can (stealing the idea from R.C. Cola) but it was too late, Coca-Cola had already lapped them. Marketing is important. At no point has Pepsi been anywhere near Coca-Cola in sales. It was never close. And now Dr. Pepper is more popular than Pepsi. If you work for Pepsi, go ahead and flush your own head in a dirty toilet.
You know what else Coca-Cola did better? They show more of the fizz and the drink itself. You can see the bottle or the glass filling up and then emptying. They show the delicious brown cold soda. That reaches the psyche on a primitive level, you can feel your body filling up on soda, ice cold fizzy soda. Pepsi focuses on the can being pulled out of ice but Pepsi has less focus on the drink inside the can. Perhaps this is because Pepsi is actually gasoline.
Pepsi is afraid to show the substance inside the can! Why are they afraid? Is the substance yellow like pee? Green like bile? We don't know. What are they hiding????? Whereas Coca-Cola proudly shows us the brown nectar.
OK scroll back up to the top of this post. The GIF of the sweaty woman drinking the soda. Perfect advertising. She's good-looking but we don't know who she is. She's sweating so she has been working out, perhaps dancing in the rain, perhaps jogging on a beach, perhaps walking the streets of Manhattan, we don't know. Her sweat probably smells like butterflies and apricots. She could be anyone and the soda makes her look more cool, more active, more youthful.
So what does Pepsi do in the 80's to try to catch up? Well, they are totally desperate, so they pay Michael Jackson and Madonna eight hundred trillion dollars to be spokespeople for Pepsi. The only problem is, I know I'm not Madonna, I know I'm not Michael Jackson. I know drinking Pepsi won't turn me into them. I just want to be my best self, my best Scott. I want to be a sweaty-active-dance-in-the-rain version of Scott, a Scott who is busy and in a hurry and always jogging and doing fun stuff like dancing on the beach, but I also have time to enjoy the good things in life like a cold Coca-Cola. So I drink Coke, because it turns me into my best self. No matter how much Pepsi I drink, I will never be the world's biggest pop star. Come on, Pepsi, do better!
Now here comes Dr. Pepper, and what do they do so well? Well they decide to do similar to Mountain Dew, they decide to be the fun and silly drink, the alternative to soda. Purple!!!! Totally different. Not red, not blue, not white. Similar to Mountain Dew, which had the green can! Only Mountain Dew tastes like camel pee so there's a limit there to how much pee a person can drink. But Dr. Pepper is created by actual doctors, you know genius doctors of taste from Harvard, and they somehow make something that tastes good, from the taste of cola and plums and cough medicine. How did they do it? We don't know. We know they used witches and sorcerers and all the power of NASA and mind control. We know they pulled out the old alchemy recipe books, they broke all the laws!
And they keep pushing the fun and silly agenda until they finally overtake Pepsi. Wow, great job Dr. Pepper. My hat is off to you. Thank you for passing Pepsi, those losers Pepsi who were Communists and trying to start a war!
It took me thirty-six minutes to write this, add the artwork, and post it. Hope you enjoy.
Let me know in the comments which is the greatest soda or cola in the world.
Special props to Welch's Grape soda, the fastest way to produce a burp or ulcer! My hat is off to Mello Yello for being such a funny name (is it urine?). Let us honor also Ramblin' Rootbeer. You had a good run. Of course Tab and PepsiLight were great drinks and let us honor their memories. Shasta Black Cherry, you had me at first sip! Sunkist in a cold bottle!
Cherry 7-Up. Yes!! So beautiful and delicious. What happened to 7 Up anyway? As a kid, it was always Coke, Pepsi, and 7-Up basically as the third major drink. Over time Dr. Pepper and Sprite surpassed 7 Up, but 7 Up was the Earl or Duke in the kingdom for a time.
