Hacker News Reader

Comment by echelon | Hacker News Reader

This seems like something that came about a decade too early, like Neutral Milk Hotel. If this launched today, I could see it gaining traction.

The art on the cans is pretty cool.

I love that there was a Usenet mailing list for this:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.fan.ok-soda/WQuelBjd8s8/...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok-soda/9Kxv...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.fan.ok-soda/1_E_...

(Not sure if Google Reader links are stable.)

View on HN

The marketing was a total hit where they tried it (including in my area), but it tasted terrible. It might have been conceptually a little "out there" for the early/mid 90s, but lots of people were talking about it, and my friends and I really wanted it to be great. I really think the problem was that it just sucked.

I was a senior in HS when it came out and I remember a bunch of us really liking the style. But, yeah, it tasted terrible.

It was certainly no crystal pepsi.

Another marketing company that deploys product as an afterthought?

How many companies have signaled jumping the shark by renaming and rebranding, as if any product issue can be fixed with messaging? Comcast -> Xfinity. Radio Shack -> The Shack. Sci Fi channel -> SyFy...

As a consumer, I'm insulted when the vendor thinks I'm so shallow. As an employee of such a vendor, it's a sign of thrash and a warning signal to look at leadership.

I agree, if you have a good product people will flock to you, although if everyone basically has the same thing like say sneakers (Nike!) that are essentially the same across all vendors a brand can set you apart even though your product isn't really any better than the competition

> As a consumer, I'm insulted when the vendor thinks I'm so shallow.

This, and then they consciously aim their campaign at people that are easily insulted by obvious marketing... What could go wrong?

It'd be really OK if they brought it back, with a better, less-aggressive formula. Or perhaps as a mild seltzer.

They could call it "OK2" and admit in the marketing, "The original OK was not as okay as we'd hoped. This is okayer."

Ha, yeah, agree they should do just soda water with no taste!

But of course now it's for millennials and the play is on the "ok boomer" concept ;)

> Ha, yeah, agree they should do just soda water with no taste!

You mean La Croix? :P

Somewhere i read or heard la croix taste described as ‘

if you were standing at one end oF a long hallway and someone walks out of a room at the other end and whispers ‘orange’ toward you’

This is very pleasant to me. The dense/scifi level of flavoring in the more syrup forward soft drinks isnt interesting and refreshing its become oppressive and tiresome.

I’ve never heard a soda taste as being oppressed. Thank you.

Oh it's got taste... mmm yummy cockroach insecticide!

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/10/05/l...

I actually liked it back in the day, but it basically reminded me of what it would taste like if you mixed every soda in a soda fountain.

The branding reminds me instantly of OBEY [0], which was really big for a while in the 2010s.

[0] https://obeyclothing.com/

Indeed, I made the same link. However, even at its largest, obey did not have a broad-enough appeal as what Coca-Cola execs would've wanted. Also, the ties with a mainstream brand would be off-putting to the core OBEY customer.

What’s a stronger mainstream brand than the Obama campaign (same artist)?

Out of order... The “branding” that became Obey started in 1989. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andre_the_Giant_Has_a_Posse

But it took off in a resurgence in Obama era.

Two things having the same artist doesn't mean they have the same mainstream potential. As I understand it, the "OBEY" thing was distinctly anti-authoritarian. For it to become mainstream would be for it to become the subject of it's own mockery.

Maybe it started that way but it became a whole large corporate clothing line.

Yesterday some girl was wearing one of those T shirts in a newspaper photo. I'd never saw them before. Is it related to Carpenter's movie?

I think very few people realize Shepard Fairey ripped off Carpenter’s “They Live” movie.

And that "They Live" was heavily influenced by the work of Barbara Kruger.

Oh wow. I had never seen her work, but a quick Google Images search totally confirms that.

yeah, she doesn't get talked about enough for how much she has influenced pop culture

> Is [OBEY] related to Carpenter's movie?

Yes. This is covered a bit in jwz's writeup "They Live and the secret history of the Mozilla logo".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_Fairey

His work was plastered all over major city centers (Berkley, New York, Seattle) in the 90s. 20 years later, it's a retro cultural icon.

> If this launched today, I could see it gaining traction.

Well, the marketing guys back then thought it could have been a hit backe then and I can see why. If you were around in the nineties, there were quite a few products geared to that cultural stream of the subvertising movement.

You mean two and a half decades too early? Or do you mean it'd have fared well a decade and a half ago?

Try it again.

Things that fail, fail in a context of the times it was executed in.

It's especially worth trying a failed idea again if the context appears different.

I was a young teen when it first came out -- in retrospect, I think it's cool, but at the time, everybody I knew felt like it was baldly pandering to our demographic / 'disaffected slackers' in general, and looked upon it with mild disdain

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone is reviving it, I’ve seen it mentioned a few places recently.

> This seems like something that came about a decade too early, like Neutral Milk Hotel

Without NMH happening in the 90s we wouldn't have the wave of bands that were inspired by them and found success 10 years later.

The can art looks like the prototype of every craft beer can on the market now.

I was asked to review a book of beers that were being made, including one which is on one, called 'The Lost and Found: an American Craft Beer Craft Beer Designer' this one.

The book is very detailed and a piece that I would not suggest anything I knew of. It was produced by a small team of professional brewers including a wine writer's producer.

These include a bottle and bottles

never dreamt I'd see an NMH reference on HN! :)

Yes! A sugary drink that has no nutritional value - which is shit for the human body - is a great product! // sarcasm [1]

Jesus, the twisted logic of this current system that encourages excluding-enclosures (proprietary 'recipes') is so damaging to humans as well as to the planet.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4kvX1kgJ8Q

Reply on news.ycombinator.com