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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK_Soda
I'm mildly amused by this Wikipedia entry for OK Soda, one of my fonder memories of the post-college/pre-boomerang years of 1993-1995. What I didn't know was that it never got past the testing stage. It was only test-marketed in certain areas (Boston being one, so that's why I was able to imbibe the nectar so often).
For those wondering, this from the entry:
OK Soda had a more "citric" taste than traditional colas, almost like a Fruit Punch version of Coke's Fresca. Some reviewers described it as "slightly spicy". Others likened it to a combination of orange soda and flat Coca-Cola.
I seem to remember it being very fruity and not as fizzy as Coke, but definitely not with the icky flatness taste that Coke has. I happened to quite like it, and bought it whenever I could.
For awhile I even saved to cans and the bottle labels simply because I liked the artwork. Even though I wasn't a big fan of Fantagraphics artists (Charles Burns and Daniel Clowes were the two major artists for the cans), I thought they looked really cool, despite the lack of color. Hey, a slacker soda! I was especially amused by the whole irony of it all. The idea behind the campaigning was the whole slacker ideal of "yeah, we like it. So what's your point?" It made fun of itself, and most of the people I knew at the time thought it was funny as well. We even played along with the 1-800-I-FEEL-OK number, calling it and leaving messages. One in particular that Crazy Jon and D. did was to do a fake sex-call message moaning "OK!!" at each other. Odd, but quite funny at the time...
This part I didn't get, though:
The general public did not respond to the offbeat campaign, and most critics point out that the campaigning was too overt in its courting of the youth and teen market. Most teenagers surveyed found the campaign "confusing".
What was so confusing about it? Like I said, it was making fun of itself and the whole thing of selling out. At that time there was the indie backlash of "my God, you can't like that band, they're not obscure enough/they're on a major label/they're being played on commercial radio/etc.!!!" This soda was saying that, like the Pepsi Generation and the people who'd like to buy the world a Coke, us Gen-Xers had a soda to say that "everything was OK." Sadly, I would have to say that us Gen-Xers took ourselves a liiiiiiitle bit too seriously back then. I think that's why they were confused. Well, that and the fact that we were still mourning the death of Kurt Cobain when the campaign really kicked in.
But you know what? I don't think the campaign would have still worked if they brought the soda out nowadays. It was a campaign that was distinctly early 90s, distinctly indie, and ultimately something that knew it wouldn't be around for long. It was a fun thing to do in the summer of '94.
I'm mildly amused by this Wikipedia entry for OK Soda, one of my fonder memories of the post-college/pre-boomerang years of 1993-1995. What I didn't know was that it never got past the testing stage. It was only test-marketed in certain areas (Boston being one, so that's why I was able to imbibe the nectar so often).
For those wondering, this from the entry:
OK Soda had a more "citric" taste than traditional colas, almost like a Fruit Punch version of Coke's Fresca. Some reviewers described it as "slightly spicy". Others likened it to a combination of orange soda and flat Coca-Cola.
I seem to remember it being very fruity and not as fizzy as Coke, but definitely not with the icky flatness taste that Coke has. I happened to quite like it, and bought it whenever I could.
For awhile I even saved to cans and the bottle labels simply because I liked the artwork. Even though I wasn't a big fan of Fantagraphics artists (Charles Burns and Daniel Clowes were the two major artists for the cans), I thought they looked really cool, despite the lack of color. Hey, a slacker soda! I was especially amused by the whole irony of it all. The idea behind the campaigning was the whole slacker ideal of "yeah, we like it. So what's your point?" It made fun of itself, and most of the people I knew at the time thought it was funny as well. We even played along with the 1-800-I-FEEL-OK number, calling it and leaving messages. One in particular that Crazy Jon and D. did was to do a fake sex-call message moaning "OK!!" at each other. Odd, but quite funny at the time...
This part I didn't get, though:
The general public did not respond to the offbeat campaign, and most critics point out that the campaigning was too overt in its courting of the youth and teen market. Most teenagers surveyed found the campaign "confusing".
What was so confusing about it? Like I said, it was making fun of itself and the whole thing of selling out. At that time there was the indie backlash of "my God, you can't like that band, they're not obscure enough/they're on a major label/they're being played on commercial radio/etc.!!!" This soda was saying that, like the Pepsi Generation and the people who'd like to buy the world a Coke, us Gen-Xers had a soda to say that "everything was OK." Sadly, I would have to say that us Gen-Xers took ourselves a liiiiiiitle bit too seriously back then. I think that's why they were confused. Well, that and the fact that we were still mourning the death of Kurt Cobain when the campaign really kicked in.
But you know what? I don't think the campaign would have still worked if they brought the soda out nowadays. It was a campaign that was distinctly early 90s, distinctly indie, and ultimately something that knew it wouldn't be around for long. It was a fun thing to do in the summer of '94.
