soooo today i learned that back in the early 90s, coca cola tried making this thing called โok sodaโ as a marketing stunt to beat out pepsi since they had way more of a hold on the โyounger/rebelliousโ generation at the time, and their way of doing that was naming it โok sodaโ so that they could copyright the word โokโ, the most popular word in the world, and at the same time brand it as anโฆironic 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 โprize cansโ of this stuff where instead of having soda inside it there would be hats. and they didnโt 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 isnโt 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 thereโs these things called โcoincidencesโ, whichโฆ yeah it doesnโt 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 โcitricโ tasting soda but somehow they fucked it up so bad that it was compared to โcarbonated tree sapโ, 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 thatโs where it ended thereโs one more curveball and without any exaggeration, you will not expect what i am about to tell you.
this guy is the โfaceโ 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 artistโs 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 MANSONโS 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. howโd he do this? howโd 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. thereโs THAT.
unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it, ok soda never really caught on since *surprise surprise!* teens really donโt 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 iโve heard thereโs 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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