3 Soda's for Executed Man's last meal

Ronnie Lee Gardner was executed in Utah last night via firing squad. Ever notice how most of the infamous murderers in history had 3 names? Lee Harvey Oswald. John Wayne Gacy. Spooky, right?

When Gardner consumed his last meal on Tuesday night, he washed it down with a 7UP.
(wow...I haven't had a 7Up in AGES. No disrespect to 7UP...I just find that the soda machines in fast food restaurants don't normally offer it in these parts...)

Gardner did not plan to eat on Thursday, but wound up consuming a Coke and a Mountain Dew before the day's end.

Not sure I would want an intake of caffeine before I Was to be executed. Doesn't your heart pound hard and fast enough just knowing you are about to be shot to death?! Maybe the extra racing and pounding takes the edge off?

I wonder how these beverages feel about unwittingly sponsoring a convicted killer's execution? "Today's firing squad was brought to you by Coca Cola! Choice of a New Generation...and a few from this Generation who are leaving us today...!"

Ok, that was crude.

Update on Coke's most interesting soda machine

Are you familiar with the Freestyle?

Not freestyle rapping.
Not freestyle swimming.
I'm talking about the Freestyle soda machine from Coca Cola.

Almost a year ago I wrote a blog post about this new technology. While inventive and potentially a sales-increaser, it appears to have had a slow start.

Today's article in Newsmax accentuates the point.
The machine costs 30% more than a traditional soda fountain machine...and has only debuted in a handful of stores.

Coca Cola CEO Muhtar Kent is undeterred.
His experience has been that anyone who has used the machine has been completely satisfied...and has come back for more!

Clearly the machine makes it easier for the consumer to try new (or obscure) flavors without investing in a 12-pack of the goods...and clearly it makes it easier for Coca Cola to test market flavours and track the results.

But the question becomes how much more soda will it sell...and will the fast food restaurants that employ the technology be able to sell enough soda to easily cover the cost?

Soda stock prices...Invest in Coke, Invest in Pepsi

The Cola War is as deeply rooted as the rivalries between Republicans and Democrats, Wrestling Fans and people who hate pro wrestling, Rock Musicians and the PRMC...ok, maybe I digress...

But the Cola Wars seems to have no end in sight. Perhaps you can profit form the profits!

My understanding what is happening, financially, with both product lines you can make an educated opinion.

(The views expressed in this article do not express my personal views. In fact, I dont own stock in either company, but I drink a LOT of their products!)

Read a great, recent article (4/19/2010) evaluating current stock prices here.

Coca Cola's recent stock price and company information on Morningstar here.

Morningstar's review of Pepsi's Q4 performance here.

Morningstar's evaluation of Jones Soda here.
JONES SODA?!?!? Well...yeah! They are a creative little bunch and deserved some finanical press!

Of course, LAST year Motley Fool was down on Jones Soda.
See here.

Well look...we cant base our lives around Coke and Pepsi, people!

The bottom line is that you have a lot of options, but you have to do oyour homework.
The stock market looks like a fun place to gamble, but you can actually beat the house better than any poker player if you research carefully and invest on things you understand.

Like soda.

Harry Potter indeed...Dungeons & Dragons soda!

It's true! Jones Soda has a limited edition Dungeons and Dragons collection!

I played a bit of D&D in my time.
Aw who am I kidding?! I used to play ALL the time!
(That might explain why I didn't DATE much in High School!)

If you are familiar with the game, then you will appreciate the flavors Jones is bringing out:
• • Potion of Healing
• • Illthid Brain Juice
• • Sneak Attack
• • Eldritch Blast
• • Dwarven Draught
• • Bigby's Crushing Thirst Destroyer

Jones has a history of offering interesting flavors, especially around the holidays. This line of flavors will get all of the Harry Potter fans, as well as the How to Train a Dragon fans, and perhaps a few Lighting Thief fans off their butts and into the fridge for a nice cold one!

OK Soda from Coca Cola...not really OK, but kinda cool!

How I came across OK Soda, I don't' remember.
But reading about it I learned it was a really interesting concept that just didn't get off the ground.

Wikipedia defines the endeavor as - OK Soda was a soft drink created by The Coca-Cola Company in 1993 that aggressively courted the Generation X demographic with unusual advertising tactics, including endorsements and even outright negative publicity.

Any good? Well, the Time website called it #1 on the list of Top 10 Bad Beverage Ideas.

But I think the marketing needs to be explored.
The entire idea behind OK Soda was to come up with something for the Gen X crowd, and marketing to them in a way that ACKNOWLEDGED that they did not want to be marketed to.
They did not want anything that was part of the corporate-culture machine.

This meant unique cans, unique soda machines and self-depreciating marketing slogans.
In fact, Kayfabe.net writes about their marketing efforts (and shows a great pic of an OK Soda soda machine!) here..

Suck.com writes an interesting piece about OK Soda here.

For a really good, in depth review of the story of OK Soda, you have to check out the article from Cavalcade of Awesome. GREAT coverage. (Editor's Note - Cavalcade of Awesome is a website and not a Rock Band.)

I thought I'd take a second to note that it was Roberto Goizuetta's idea to bring back Sergio Zyman to Coke's marketing group (he was fired after the New Coke debacle)...and Sergio's came up with the entire business model for OK Soda. Why do I share this with you? Because I'm a huge Goizuetta fan! :)

While most soda reviews just KILL a product (See yesterday's post about Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper) I found it interesting the OK Soda has a Facebook Fansite! Ok...maybe it IS Ok after all!

Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper...really?!

If you like soda as much as I do...and you like Chocolate as much as I do...and like cherries a bit to boot...then seeing something called Cherry Chocolate Diet Dr. Pepper should catch your eye right away!



It did mine.



I LOVE Dr. Pepper, but I never heard of THIS flavor and had to do a little research to see what I had missed.

According to Wikipedia:

Diet Cherry Chocolate Dr Pepper (2007–2008) was introduced as a limited edition flavor on November 21, 2007. It was discontinued in April 2008. It became available in Canada in early January 2008. A non-diet version was never created. The taste is similar to Canfield's Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge Soda but with the distinctive Dr Pepper flavor.

Limited Edition all right! It ran for 5 months.

That does not smack of word recognition.

If it WAS world-renoun, it would have gotten a comeback each November, no?

Cherry Chocolate Rain video on You Tube. It's by Tay Zonday, the knucklehead who did the original Chocolate Rain. I don't know how much Dr. Pepper paid him, but...

Junk Food Blog reviews the soda here. (No mention of the video.)

Appropo of Something, which just KILLED Dr. Pepper's Berries and Cream flavor, reviews the Cherry Chocolate flavor here. (you will absolutely have to brush your teeth after reading the Berries and Cream review...)

Associated Content gave a 2-page, thorough review of the drink here. Well, it's 2 pages due to all the click-thru ads! However, while I enjoyed the humor of the above reviews, I give Associated Content big ups for doing a non-biased review.

So the question of "what did I miss" apparently turns out to be "not terribly much!"

I'm disappointed. It sure SOUNDS delicious.

For Cherries and Chocolate, I guess we'll have to stick with the world's favorite: Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolate Cherry Cordials. YUM-MEEE!

Soda's ode to Seth Godin

When I was more involved with Marketing, I was a HYOOGE fan of Seth Godin.


I still am a huge fan, but I read him less often because my current position of work has a slightly different scope of work to it than when I was more actively pursuing his (marketing) ideas.





(By the way, I recently joined the gym so I wouldn't REALLY be huge. Well, hang on. I guess if I work really, really hard I COULD be a huge fan...Ok, we'll address that later.)





Anyway, today I was listening to an interview Seth gave, and it occur ed to me: I used to read Seth's blog all the time, I wonder if he's ever read mine?





And more importantly (because I don't cater to my own Self Importance): Does Seth like Soda? Does he think soda is good?

Jumped over to my friend Google and looked into Seth Godin's ideas about Soda:

Seth Godin Mistakes Custom Soda for a Hybrid Car - an author's critique of Seth comparing Jones Soda's marketing to Toyota's marketing of their hybrid vehicle.





Everyone is Clueless - Seth is impressed with how the owner of Galco's Soda Pop Stop actually TURNED DOWN Pepsi as a vendor. Actually, I'm pretty impressed myself...!





By the way, here is the You Tube video that showcases Galco's.
Even though the typed text around the 'screen' is not in English, the commentary absolutely is.

Our sister blog, Coke vs Pepsi, is shown on a platform called Squidoo. (as opposed to Blogger. Follow?) You cannot find much about Seth at Coke vs. Pepsi...but he IS the person who first conceived the idea of the 'Squidoo' platform that CvP is on, and assembled a team that brought it to life!

Seth Godin is one of the most insightful and thought provoking marketer I've ever read. I highly encourage you to pour yourself a tall glass of Cola and read the first book of his you can find!