OK Soda was a short-lived 1990s soft drink put out by the Coca-Cola company, remarkable for the brilliant postmodern irony of its marketing campaign. Thomas Flight's short documentary tells a fascinating story about its failure.

Can you sell disillusionment? Can you subvert something and achieve the same thing that what you're subverting achieves?

Coca-cola couldn't in 1993. But compare to the successful 2015 LeBron commercial for Sprite, which also sells disillusionment. What, Flight asks, did it do differently?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn_H1AJRlMw

Flight does point out that OK Soda tasted bad, which might well have been a factor in its quick disappearance.

Conscious postmodernism in advertising usually leads to:

a) Cringe-inducing forced coolness. b) "How do you do, fellow-cynics?" c) the toxic media spillway that ultimately dumped America in a giant tub of Trump. d) The obvious impossibility of marketing piss with metahumor about the awfulness of marketing and of piss.

But sometimes someone gets it right. Read the rest

One thousands teenagers were asked to rank brands by coolness [PDF]. YouTube and Netflix are the coolest. The Wall Street Journal and Vice are the least cool. Many are surprised by the latter, but it must be said, they aren't teenagers.

(If you're wondering why Chrome and other polo-shirted, khaki-shortsed Googlebrands are cool, well, take a guess who commissioned and published the research.) Read the rest