soooo today i learned that back in the early 90s, coca cola tried making this thing called âok sodaâ as a marketing stunt to beat out pepsi since they had way more of a hold on the âyounger/rebelliousâ generation at the time, and their way of doing that was naming it âok sodaâ so that they could copyright the word âokâ, the most popular word in the world, and at the same time brand it as anâŠironic soda??? like the whole thing with it was that they tried to brand ok soda as a counterculture soda but instead of making it about typical 90s RADICAL EXTREME!!! fodder the theme of it was uh. unsettling capitalist brutalist dystopia. instead of being bright and colorful the color scheme was only stark whites, grays and reds and the cans looked like this. bold shapes and labels stating ominous, robotic things with a figure always staring dead into you on the front, no coca cola branding on it at all.
sometimes there would be âprize cansâ of this stuff where instead of having soda inside it there would be hats. and they didnât sell this option in boxes by the way they just put prize cans in random vending machines. and put like 25 cents in it so hey. you could get an actual soda that isnât just hats. maybe.
did i mention that this soda also had a fucking MANIFESTO??? because yeah it sure had that printed on some cans and it goes as follows
and thereâs these things called âcoincidencesâ, which⊠yeah it doesnât make it sound any less ominous
and you might be wondering how the soda itself tastes like does it taste good? ok? well apparently it was just a regular âcitricâ tasting soda but somehow they fucked it up so bad that it was compared to âcarbonated tree sapâ, and instead of trying to make the drink taste better they included that it tasted like shit, INTO THE ADVERTISING SCHEME ITSELF. they would literally advertise that it tasted like ass as a part of the ironic marketing, no i am not kidding.
but if you thought thatâs where it ended thereâs one more curveball and without any exaggeration, you will not expect what i am about to tell you.
this guy is the âfaceâ of ok soda, as in he was printed on the most cans and technically served as a mascot of sorts for the entire thing. his face was a major part of the branding, and this design for the cans was one of if not the most common.
okay. cool. no issue there right?
take a guess on who this guy is based off of.
the artistâs coworker? a generic guy? the artist himself? a relative? some random reference model they hired?
CHARLES MANSON. YES, THIS IS REAL. MEANING FOR A BRIEF MOMENT IN TIME, CHARLES MANSONâS FACE WAS USED AS A MEANS TO SELL COCA COLA.
the lead artist himself has even come forward to say this is the case. and now you may be asking wait. howâd he do this? howâd he possibly get away with this, years after the crimes had been committed?
well according to him, it was simple. apparently none of the contracts he signed said anything against putting a mass murderer on the can. so. thereâs THAT.
unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, ok soda never really caught on since *surprise surprise!* teens really donât want to buy soda that looks like a brutalist art museum, and it never had a wide release so it was only a thing for like two years between 1993 and 1995. but from what iâve heard thereâs still people who are giving this soda a small modern following, collecting all the cans and merchandise and even coming up with stand in recipes for the soda formula itself.
so yeah! that was ok soda.
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