OK Soda: The Gen X pop that fizzled

In the '90s, Madison Avenue did all kinds of hopeless, silly crap trying to appeal to Generation X. (Perhaps you recall the ads for the "punk rock" Subaru, starring a young Daniel Farraday.) One of the most notorious marketing disasters of the grunge rock era was a little concoction called OK Soda.

In 1993, Coca-Cola re-hired Sergio Zyman, the marketing wiz behind the New Coke debacle. Studies showed that Coke was the second most widely recognized word in the world, and OK was the first. Zyman convinced his bosses to market a new soda called OK, specifically pitched at Generation X. Gen X'ers were supposed to be cynical, apathetic and anti-corporate, so OK's ad campaign would attempt to appeal to people who hated advertising.

The cans were designed by alternative comics faves Daniel Clowes and Charles Burns, featuring a grim, striking, 'zine-like look and cryptic excerpts from the "OK Manifesto":

1. What's the point of OK? Well, what's the point of anything?
2. OK Soda emphatically rejects anything that is not OK, and fully supports anything that is.
3. The better you understand something, the more OK it turns out to be.
4. OK Soda says, "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything."
5. OK Soda reveals the surprising truth about people and situations.
6. OK Soda does not subscribe to any religion, or endorse any political party, or do anything other than feel OK.
7. There is no real secret to feeling OK.
8. OK Soda may be the preferred drink of other people such as yourself.
9. Never overestimate the remarkable abilities of "OK" brand soda.
10. Please wake up every morning knowing that things are going to be OK.

The soda was tried out in test markets around the US, with baffling TV ads like this:



Other ads featured (alleged) calls to OK Soda's 800 number from people complaining about the ad campaign. ("Ah, this is Pam H. from Newton, Massachusetts, and I resent you saying that everything is going to be O.K. You don't know anything about my life. You don't know what I've been through in the last month. I really resent it. I'm tired of you people trying to tell me things that you don't have any idea about. I resent it.")

There was a radio spot comparing the taste of OK Soda to "carbonated tree sap," and if anything it sounds like they were perhaps giving themselves too much credit. By almost all accounts OK Soda was foul-tasting stuff, sort of a cross between a fizzless cola and a fruit drink. Clowes himself later admitted that he'd tried it once and "just about puked."

The soda ended production in 1995. It still has a tiny cult following, with fans trading old cans and marketing material on Ebay, and running their own websites. This poor soul was inspired to do his own little video tribute on Youtube:



My generation hasn't done much to be proud of... But at least we can say that we made a spectacular failure of OK Soda.


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