The marketing was a total hit where they tried it (including in my area), but it tasted terrible. It might have been conceptually a little "out there" for the early/mid 90s, but lots of people were talking about it, and my friends and I really wanted it to be great. I really think the problem was that it just sucked.
Somewhere i read or heard la croix taste described as ‘
if you were standing at one end oF a long hallway and someone walks out of a room at the other end and whispers ‘orange’ toward you’
This is very pleasant to me. The dense/scifi level of flavoring in the more syrup forward soft drinks isnt interesting and refreshing its become oppressive and tiresome.
Another marketing company that deploys product as an afterthought?
How many companies have signaled jumping the shark by renaming and rebranding, as if any product issue can be fixed with messaging? Comcast -> Xfinity. Radio Shack -> The Shack. Sci Fi channel -> SyFy...
As a consumer, I'm insulted when the vendor thinks I'm so shallow. As an employee of such a vendor, it's a sign of thrash and a warning signal to look at leadership.
I agree, if you have a good product people will flock to you, although if everyone basically has the same thing like say sneakers (Nike!) that are essentially the same across all vendors a brand can set you apart even though your product isn't really any better than the competition
Indeed, I made the same link. However, even at its largest, obey did not have a broad-enough appeal as what Coca-Cola execs would've wanted. Also, the ties with a mainstream brand would be off-putting to the core OBEY customer.
Two things having the same artist doesn't mean they have the same mainstream potential. As I understand it, the "OBEY" thing was distinctly anti-authoritarian. For it to become mainstream would be for it to become the subject of it's own mockery.
> If this launched today, I could see it gaining traction.
Well, the marketing guys back then thought it could have been a hit backe then and I can see why. If you were around in the nineties, there were quite a few products geared to that cultural stream of the subvertising movement.
I was a young teen when it first came out -- in retrospect, I think it's cool, but at the time, everybody I knew felt like it was baldly pandering to our demographic / 'disaffected slackers' in general, and looked upon it with mild disdain
I was asked to review a book of beers that were being made, including one which is on one, called 'The Lost and Found: an American Craft Beer Craft Beer Designer' this one.
The book is very detailed and a piece that I would not suggest anything I knew of. It was produced by a small team of professional brewers including a wine writer's producer.
Yes! A sugary drink that has no nutritional value - which is shit for the human body - is a great product! // sarcasm [1]
Jesus, the twisted logic of this current system that encourages excluding-enclosures (proprietary 'recipes') is so damaging to humans as well as to the planet.
The art on the cans is pretty cool.
I love that there was a Usenet mailing list for this:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.fan.ok-soda/WQuelBjd8s8/...
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok-soda/9Kxv...
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok-soda/1_E_...
(Not sure if Google Reader links are stable.)