Saturday, November 01, 2008
The Pepsi People
Back in my days at Southeast Junior High School, circa 1973, a friend of mine referred to the good-looking popular kids as "the Pepsi people." In his mind, the Pepsi ad campaign of the era appealed to them, but not us. Of course, we might have privately aspired to be Pepsi people, but we would never have admitted it out loud. I've been all about Coca-Cola ever since.
Anyway, I just stumbled across the classic Pepsi people ad on YouTube. I am happy to say that it reinforced, rather than weakened, my now 35 year-old prejudices.
10 Comments:
By 
Escort81, at
Sat Nov 01, 11:59:00 AM:
How can you be down on an ad that features a really nice gaff-rigged cutter (it might actually be a Friendship sloop) and a clam bake?
Greenman Tim, what say you?
I would suggest that getting caught up in the Pepsi vs. Coke thing as an allegory for the struggle for social status is overly Manichean.
If you want to go down that road, then pick on Coke for the "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" campaign as the ultimate load of Kumbaya BS. Coca-Cola as a company did, however, act as a kind of quasi-State Department for much of the 1950s and 1960s, because it (through its franchise bottlers) had a presence in almost every country on earth.
By 
, at
Sat Nov 01, 12:12:00 PM:
Circa 1945 a nickel bought 12 ounces of Pepsi, but only 6 of Coke. Pepsi advertised this fact with the following radio jingle:
Pepsi Cola hits the spot;
Twelve full ounces that's a lot;
Twice as much for a nickel too;
Pesi Cola is the drink for you!
Nickel..nickel..nickel......
Very effective, particularly, I would think, with those having a vivid memory of the Great Depression. As for me, I was interested in the most liquid bang for the nickel to quench a thirst generated caddying 36 holes double in the hot Illinois summer (Westmorelaand CC, Glenview).
By MEANA55, at
Sat Nov 01, 02:27:00 PM:
In my time in the Army, starting in the mid-80s, the term, "Pepsi generation," was a pejorative used by Drill Sergeants when bemoaning the habits of ease and luxury that made new recruits such lousy soldiers (this was all canned, by the way, and did not necessarily reflect how the recruits were actually doing).
Around the turn of the century, while doing work for a large city in the northeast on a teacher recruitment system, I got stuck in a conference room listening to about fifteen seconds' worth of "insight" jam-packed into a thirty-plus-minute presentation by a way-hot-but-utterly-vapid McKinsey fembot. The last PowerPoint slide in the deck (of which she helpfully provided everyone color-printed hardcopy), contained what was effectively a homework assignment based on psychobabbly feelings and attitudes.
I was in a fairly hard-techie role on this project, and I was already a couple of days behind schedule thanks to provisioning mistakes on the part of their datacenter staff.
The Project Officer, playing along with the nonsense, ordered that everyone complete and submit their "homework assignment" by the morning status meeting. He must have seen my ears turn red, and he asked me directly if I had a problem with that. I was already close to the breaking point because of the provisioning problems of *his* people, and my answer was a somewhat intemperate, "I'll need an amended contract, because there's nothing in the SOW covering scut-work assigned by the Pepsi generation."
Two people at the conference table burst-out laughing, and the Project Officer had to crack a smile because he couldn't keep his own composure. He told me later that he hadn't heard "Pepsi generation" since he was in basic training in the mid-70s.
The McKinsey fembot was not amused.
I did the stupid homework assignment and submitted it, anyway, because I did regret my outburst. The bright spots of this story are that my bad behavior scored me points with the datacenter people, and the Project Officer amended my fixed-price-plus-travel contract to cover the days lost.
By GreenmanTim, at
Sat Nov 01, 06:53:00 PM:
I'm with Escort81 here. Hating on clambakes, wooden ships and the rockbound New England Coast as a surrogate for a certain sort of WASP elite that would be very familiar - indeed highly valued - by our respective grandmothers is just the sort of reverse snobbery that will get you booted from the Social Register (if indeed, you haven't given up the old rag along with the rest of us long ago). It also is an unmitigated dig at our 41st President and his wife (note the double strand of pearls) and I am shocked, shocked I say, that more of your loyal conservative readers haven't called you on it.
Granted, Pespis is vapid stuff. The commercial is rather like putting lipstick on...nevermind.
By , at
Sat Nov 01, 08:18:00 PM:
Just please don't confuse the Pepsi People with the Polo People!
(You told us to "mock [you] now" . . . but it's so much sweeter to mock you later :-) !)
I was thinking that RC Cola (remember the "Me & My RC" campaign?) might have been the true winner in the counter-culture-cola wars . . . but now Wikipedia has undone me again -- explaining that RC was acquired by Cadbury Schweppes plc.
Which, of course, would make RC drinkers of yesteryear into latter-day "effete, Snapple-sipping country clubbers" (to quote your Dad).
By , at
Sun Nov 02, 03:41:00 AM:
I remember this ad very well. On my list of things I want to do before I die is to sail to a remote cove on the East Coast and have a clam bake on he beach. I all looks so cool.
I wonder of the impression is different between East and West coast? We have very few desolate anchorages on the West Coast and our heritage is so different, we would just drive to the beach. Which doesn't have quite the fun in it as sailing to your destination.
By , at
Sun Nov 02, 03:45:00 AM:
One more thing, commercials like that back in the day caused communists to go ballistic, so they had all kinds of entertainment value beyond their air time.
By GreenmanTim, at
Sun Nov 02, 10:27:00 AM:
By far the most disturbing "vintage" cola commercials which this post has prompted me to search for on YouTube are the "I'm a Pepper" slots from the disco era featuring David "Makin It" Naughton. Here, he hoofs it with Popeye...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQPN3UKQM-U
By GreenmanTim, at
Sun Nov 02, 10:29:00 AM:
"On my list of things I want to do before I die is to sail to a remote cove on the East Coast and have a clam bake on he beach. I all looks so cool. "
I suspect Escort81 and I could hook you up, Tyree. A good aspiration to have.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Nov 02, 12:01:00 PM:
Indeed, GreenmanTim could rent Tyree a beautiful Victorian over a bluff in Buzzard's Bay, MA. I happen to know there are clams in the beach below, because I have personally dug them up.
