The OK Soda Story: How One Brand Died Before It Began

Summary

---

Podcast Summary

Brain Driven Brands

Host: Sarah Levinger
Episode: The OK Soda Story: How One Brand Died Before It Began
Date: October 9, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah Levinger dives into one of the oddest chapters in Coca-Cola’s history: the short-lived launch and rapid demise of OK Soda in the early 1990s. The show examines why OK Soda—aimed squarely at cynical Gen Xers—failed, and uses its story to tease out powerful lessons about neuromarketing, emotion-driven branding, and the dangers of choosing the wrong mood to anchor your brand. With comparisons to contemporary brands like Liquid Death, Sarah unpacks why some emotional strategies resonate while others flop.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The OK Soda Experiment

• [00:43] Introduction to OK Soda: Coca-Cola launched OK Soda in the early 1990s as a bold experiment: Could they create a soda targeted at the highly cynical, skeptical Gen X demographic?
• Targeted emotion: apathy, skepticism, and cynicism—unlike any mass-market soft drink before.
• [02:14] The audience: “Gen Xer. No offense, if you're a Gen Xer out there...”

2. The Marketing Strategy: Selling Apathy

• [02:32] Emotional Positioning: The campaign was designed to "sell an emotion"—specifically, skepticism—by leaning into anti-marketing rhetoric, ironic messaging, and cryptic manifestos.
  • “You got to pick an emotion that you're selling and then double, triple down on it everywhere in your marketing.” – Sarah [02:32]
• [04:04] Visuals & Tone: The design played into weird, unsettling aesthetics.
  • “The cans look like they had, like, police sketches of serial killing suspects.” – Co-host [04:24]
  • Campaigns made consumers feel “seen in their disbelief in marketing.”
• [04:31] Gen X engagement: The target market initially seemed to love the ads.

3. The Collapse: Great Ads, No Sales

• [05:41] OK Soda failed to meet Coca-Cola’s modest 4% internal sales target and was discontinued within a year.
  • “Even though their ads were well received...conversions never hit. They essentially tried to sell apathy as an emotion, cynicism as the emotional flavor... and customers heard 'we’re okay' and they just never purchased.” – Sarah [05:44]
• [06:09] Discussion on why selling "apathy" was a fundamental misstep.
  • “It's so funny to try to market to the one emotion that is the most indifferent and least intense.” – Co-host
• [06:28] Comparison to brands like Liquid Death—brands that channel much more active, intense emotions (e.g., “rage against the machine”) with huge success.

4. The Crucial Difference: Active vs. Passive Emotions

• [08:13] “Go after an active emotion, not a passive one.” – Sarah
• [08:56] Coke’s core brand is happiness and nostalgia, not apathy. The OK Soda experiment clashed with their own emotional legacy.
  • “You got to give people an out. An actual physical entity that will resolve the negative emotion...” – Sarah [09:13]

5. Category Violations: Don’t Rebel Against Yourself

• [09:55] Parallels are drawn with modern “anti-agency agency” branding—brands and agencies rebelling against their own category, which confuses consumers and undermines social proof.
  • “You are literally fighting your own entity. The brain can't come to terms with what you're trying to say.” – Sarah [09:55]
• [11:10] General lesson: Avoid being “in the middle”—either embrace intensity or get forgotten.

6. Lessons on Identity, Aspiration, and Emotional Targeting

• [12:23] Sell to who people want to be—not necessarily to who they currently are.
  • “You don't always want to sell to who people are. You want to sell to who they want to be.” – Co-host [14:23]
• [15:14] Discussion of “ideal self,” “actual self,” and “ought self” in emotional marketing:
  • “Go after the person they want to be... but you got to figure out which version do they want to be: ideal, actual, or ought self.” – Sarah [15:14]
• [13:00] Not everyone is looking to embrace “apathy” as a core identity—most people want products that affirm or improve their self-image, even if passively.

7. Tactical Takeaways for Marketers

• [16:42] Final takeaway:
  • “Market to the more intense emotion. Active.” – Co-host [16:42], Sarah [16:47]
• [16:51] It's a mistake to assume customers are always preoccupied by a problem; for a brand to work, the issue and the emotion around it must be strong and actionable.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Be careful which emotion you choose and be careful which emotion you lean into.” – Sarah [05:27]
• “Life sucks, get used to it.” – Sarah imitating the failed OK Soda message [09:30]
• “There's nothing to gain from being in the middle in anything.” – Co-host [11:10]
• “Pick a struggle, pick an enemy. And you need to go as hard at that enemy as you possibly can.” – Sarah [11:57]
• “People don't feel apathetic every day. That's not their identity.” – Co-host [13:18]
• “You gotta understand, ideal self is usually the one that marketers go after... But ideal self sometimes comes across as a little, like preachy.” – Sarah [15:14]

---

Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |---------|-------------|-----------| | Introduction & Setting the Scene | OK Soda’s background, target market | 00:00 – 02:14 | | Emotional Branding Strategy | Selling skepticism & apathy | 02:14 – 05:05 | | The Aesthetic & Reaction | Can design, Gen X response | 04:04 – 05:41 | | The Demise | Ads loved, sales failed, why? | 05:41 – 06:43 | | Liquid Death Comparison | Why active emotions win | 06:43 – 08:28 | | Category Lessons | Anti-agency/anti-category branding pitfalls | 08:28 – 11:10 | | The Danger of the Middle | Importance of picking a lane | 11:10 – 12:58 | | Identity & Aspiration | Marketing to who people want to be | 12:58 – 14:52 | | The Self Model in Branding | Ideal/actual/ought self & messaging | 14:52 – 16:08 | | Main Takeaways | Practical lessons for marketers | 16:42 – 17:25 |

---

Tone & Style

The episode maintains a conversational, witty, and irreverent tone, blending sharp marketing insights with self-deprecating Gen X jokes and lively banter. Sarah and her co-host use humor and real-world contemporary analogies (like Liquid Death and “anti-agency” branding) to keep the discussion practical and highly engaging.

---

Actionable Takeaways for Marketers

• Always sell an active emotion—apathy and indifference don’t convert, even if the ad campaign is clever or popular.
• Don’t define your brand by opposition to your own category (“anti-agency agency,” etc.), as it confuses customers and breaks social proof.
• Target the identity your customer aspires to, not necessarily who they are today.
• Differentiate with intensity, clear emotional lanes, and a definite ‘enemy’ or stance. Middle-of-the-road brands become forgettable.
• Offer a way out or a resolution—if you channel negative sentiment, also provide a hopeful or empowering alternative.

---

For Further Exploration

Listeners are invited to suggest more obscure marketing history topics for future episodes via Twitter, with the promise of “30 back-to-back” if even one person responds positively!

---

Transcript

[A]

Do you want me to tell you? Okay, I'll tell you the story, but this is the 1990s. Coca Cola. Okay. Soda launch.

[B]

Okay, perfect.

[A]

You know anything about that?

[B]

Nope. But Coke is what I heard.

[A]

So we're gonna learn today. Here we go. Here we go. History.

[B]

Sure. Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands. One of my favorite topics today, we're going to talk about Coke. I think how to become a cokehead. What the biggest cokeheads wanted in the 90s.

[A]

I don't think this. No, no.

[B]

That's not what the episode's about.

[A]

This is a family friendly sort of channel. There is explicit words.

[B]

I have a lot of kids listening to e commerce marketing podcast, so we got.

[A]

I have to use the explicit setting on the podcast platform because they're like, you guys curse a lot.

[B]

I think you can say co head without. I. I won't curse the rest of this episode, but I think you can say the phrase co head without putting me down there. Okay, we're talking about the soda.

[A]

All right. We're talking about the soda. Today we're gonna do a deep dive into history because the last episode we did. If you guys didn't go listen to the Orange vs Apple podcast, go listen.

[B]

To apples and oranges.

[A]

That episode was so interesting, and it literally was just. Sarah was like, hey, you want to talk about history today? I'm a history buff. I don't think a lot of people know that because I never talk about it. But I really freaking love history, especially advertising. History is really interesting to me because I love marketing. I. But when it comes down to, like, learning from historical events, I try and look for, like, obscure things because I like to look for things that, like, nobody knows, like apples and oranges. So go listen to that one. This one, though, I want to know, do you know anything about the. The early 1990s Coca Cola launch of OK soda?

[B]

Okay, soda.

[A]

Okay. You probably were too young to drink okay soda.

[B]

I was born in 96, so.

[A]

Yeah, you were 6 years old. So you probably don't remember this when it happened. Early 1990s, Coca Cola launched a brand called OK Soda. And it was kind of an experiment, mostly because they were doing really well, obviously with their, like, basic products, with their foundational products. But they wanted to see specifically if they could aim their soda at one specific demographic that was highly cynical, very pessimistic, and, like, really just didn't drink a lot of soda. Okay, you know which demographic it was? I'll tell you.

[B]

But, like, I don't know, just miserable, depressed. Was it like grunge and funk kids.

[A]

Gen Xer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

No offense, if you're a Gen Xer out there, I. I consider myself a Gen Xer, but I can't say it in particular because I was born in 88, so I missed the cut off.

[B]

But I wouldn't announce that, by the way.

[A]

Okay, so the whole marketing premise of this was really interesting. They wanted to sell an emotion, which I think was brilliant, because I always tell people, especially on, like, newsletter, Twitter, everywhere, you got to pick an emotion that you're selling and then double, triple down on it everywhere in your marketing. Whatever that core word is, make sure you lean into it, because that's how you become, like, stickers. You have longevity. You beg a word, you go. Right? So their whole marketing premise was to lean into kind of the skepticism that was coming out of Gen Xers. So they used marketing and advertising in particular, that was, like, ironic. They used lots of, like, cryptic manifestos, anti ads kind of a thing. They wanted to make people feel kind of, like, seen in their disbelief in marketing. This is really interesting because I've seen a lot of brands go after this this year where they're like, we are the anti agency agency. Or we're. Or we're the. We're the brand that doesn't do marketing. I'm just like, yeah.

[B]

Do you know how many girls told me in college, I'm not like other girls? Okay, okay, sure. Christine.

[A]

Like, she wasn't though.

[B]

She was actually her name.

[A]

He wanted you to know that she was different. Okay. This episode's gonna make me die. Okay, so Kelly, too.

[B]

All right, I'm done.

[A]

They started running all these advertising campaigns. They released okay, Soda in test markets in 1994 in cities like Boston, Seattle, and then nationwide. They were kind of aiming for that as they went forward, and some of their marketing. I need to pull up, because. Okay, I'll just show you.

[B]

I'm looking at the cans right now. They're insane.

[A]

Have you seen it? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Look at. Okay.

[B]

Soda.

[A]

Because the way that it looks is like, what the fuck? Like, you look at this, and it's like, this can't be a brand. This looks not okay. This looks like somebody's scary nightmare dream that somebody slapped on for those who can't.

[B]

Like, the cans look like they had, like, police sketches of serial killing suspects. That's what the cans look like.

[A]

I'm like, what is going on? So anyways, they launched all these advertising campaigns that was basically trying to get people to, like, lean into the fact that, like, Advertising is out to get you, that you're a part of the propaganda, that you're just like a sheep, basically a sheep consumer. And, and it was so fascinating because people actually grabbed onto it. The Gen Xers loved it. Like advertising all their, their, their engagement, I would say of the advertising through the roof, frickin loved it. Now it was really interesting because okay Soda was meant to basically capitalize on the fact that people were feeling like corporate America was taking advantage of them. Right. So this brand noticed the emotion that their consumers were feeling and tried to lean into it. My like basic end of the story is be careful which emotion you choose and be careful which emotion you lean into because so these guys really interesting. They released okay Soda like I said, at test markets in 1994. Okay Soda was discontinued by 1995. It never made the full national rollout because it failed to meet Coca Cola's internal 4% sales target. 4, 4%.

[B]

I mean 4% of all Coke sales seems very aggressive.

[A]

It's very, very big. They wanted a lot of people to get in on this, but it just, it had a weak presence in small and medium markets. So like even though their ads were well received and things looked like it would go well, conversions never hit. They essentially tried to sell apathy as an emotion, cynicism as the emotional flavor of the market. And it just. Customers heard like we're okay and they just never purchased.

[B]

It's so funny to try to market to the one emotion that is the most indifferent and least intense, that people.

[A]

Are just like, oh my God.

[B]

Okay, this would have been better if it was. Oh, I'm not going to curse. This would have been better if it was Fu Soda.

[A]

Yes, I like Liquid Death. Okay, so we can do the juxtaposition. Yeah, Liquid Death is trying to do and did the same exact thing that OK Soda just to a more intense emotion. Exactly. Let's pause for just a minute.

[B]

Some brands have already unlocked a new profitable prospecting channel. They've closed the chapter in their business of meta retargeting and struggling to find net new audiences. And they've already cracked the code on what prospecting needs to look like in 2026 and beyond. Those brands have joined the otherside. Otherside is an agency that figured out how to turn programmatic advertising into a performance marketing channel. They're able to advertise outside the meta ecosystem with clear and accurate attribution, with the ability to prospect and retarget across platforms and ultimately unlock huge new audiences that aren't chronically on Meta and Instagram for brain driven brands listeners, they're running an insane offer right now. They'll run your ads for free for two months to prove to you it works. Then you can either part ways with them or continue at their normal affordable rates. But they're making this risk free and a no brainer for you to try. So go to jointheotherside.com and let them know we sent you.

[A]

And now back to the show. Now the difference is, okay, so to literally tried to go after like, eh, you're too smart for ads. Right. They were trying to like rise a revolution for people to go against mainstream marketing and get attached to the brand in that particular sense. And it took totally freaking backfired. Liquid death though actually raised a resolute revolution.

[B]

Liquid death went after the more active emotion. Like it went with like, like the like valence and intensity zone of it was like high energy negative.

[A]

Like let's go. Yes, they went after an active emotion, not a passive emotion. Please, if you take anything from this podcast, please take this. Go after an active emotion, not a passive one. Yeah, good call out.

[B]

So I think that's big. The other thing is I think this kind of goes into like, you know, for the brands out there that are saying you never do discounts or advertising and then you do. You can't market this way from Coca Cola, arguably the best and biggest propaganda machine other than 1940s Germany.

[A]

Well, in that sense, like do you know what Coca Cola markets? Which emotion they market?

[B]

Nostalgia.

[A]

So funny. Nostalgia and happiness. Yeah, they literally market happiness. And then they tried to create a product where they were marketing apathy. Like I'm sorry, rebellion only works if you give people kind of a positive alternative. Right. You can't just say everything sucks and not give them an out. Okay. People like when you're selling emotion, you got to give people an out. An actual physical entity for them to purchase that will resolve the negative emotion that you have just made them feel.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You cannot just stop your advertising at Life sucks. Get used to it.

[B]

People want to identify with at times. Anger and raging against the machine.

[A]

Like very powerful.

[B]

Yeah, look at America today. Like that works. But yeah, yeah. Apathy and being mid is not something that I want to get. I'm super fucking. Oh. Oh, damn.

[A]

Almost.

[B]

Darn almost.

[A]

And this is the funniest part. It's like they were trying to rebel against their own entity and this is the reason why. I'm so sorry, agencies. I'm going to call you guys out. This anti agency agency thing, guys. You are literally fighting your own entity. Like the brain can't come to terms with what you're trying to say. So this is why I really, I get so frustrated when I see that on anybody's website, the anti aging agency. Because you're not, you are an agency. And anybody that comes into your ecosystem is going to automatically feel that all.

[B]

Of you are exactly the same.

[A]

Like nobody's going to get caught like loving the anti agency agency because it goes against natural social proof. Right. Like you need to be an agency. You just need to be a good agency. Same for brands. I can't stand these brands that go after this. Like we are the non beauty beauty. I'm like that doesn't make any sense. You are makeup, that's what you are. And the brain cannot decouple this. You got to make sure that you understand your own category and don't fight against what's already there. Because this is what okay, Soda did they, they rebelled against soda which literally leaves them nowhere to go. Somebody somewhere in marketing land was like this is a great idea. We should go after this. So yeah, that's.

[B]

It is so funny how like and this is like my belief in life for everything. There's nothing to gain from being in.

[A]

The middle in anything in 10,000%.

[B]

And I think this campaign like tried to be in the middle where they should have just gone like full depressed angry with it.

[A]

Yes. You should have gone rebellion style the way Liquid Death did. Put slap a frickin like skull on it. Take it to a bunch of like hard rock shows and then you know, just have people scream on music their way through drinking water. Like you need if you're going to go hard at a, go hard at it. And I've had brands ask me even within the last week like what do you think is going to be the best takeaway of 2026? You need to pick a lane. Like pick a struggle, pick an enemy. And you need to go as hard at that enemy as you possibly can.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like do not get in this middle ground of like vanilla it down because people are going to forget you immediately or not care.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like we've talked about this with OG like our, our enemy was like soulless mass produced similar looking watches. But like this okay campaign. What's your enemy? What's your emotion? Like any other emotion, all emotions are your enemy.

[A]

Well it just I have anyone who's.

[B]

Feeling happy or sad is not in the target market for this. Do you know what I've thought about? And this like, actually might be a business I start one day, so we'll see if anyone steals it or if you want to invest. I don't have the money to start. I have thought about either an energy drink or, like, a canned cocktail brand, and I want each pack to come with some variations that are either called, like, good day or bad day.

[A]

Oh, okay. I love this.

[B]

Good day for energy drink would be like, yes, caffeine, and it's fine. And bad day would be more. And same for alcohol content. Like, bad day. This one's 14 alcohol. Go nuts. Good day, 6 per person.

[A]

Like, you're good.

[B]

But I think, like, and like, I. I think that's probably where this missed too, is. Like, people don't feel apathetic every day. That's not their identity.

[A]

No.

[B]

Like, there might be a couple days a week for them, but it's not every day. And I think it'd be way more interesting to have a soda or have whatever that's like, hey, there's a good day and there's a bad day.

[A]

1, 100. So that they can pick and choose how people, like, self qualify into the products that they're purchasing. There's a lot of psychology behind that. This is really interesting too, because they were trying to go after a new market, and oftentimes when you're trying to open up the market, you're just trying to identify what these people feel and what they're interested in. Now, they did the right thing, and they only launched it in a couple different cities. But immediately, like, you can tell, Gen Xers might feel a little bit of, like, angst against what's happening on the planet right now, but that's not what they're trying to buy. Yeah, they're not trying.

[B]

They don't want to affirm that identity.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Like, the identity they're trying to affirm is just like, I don't align with what's happening. Not that the world is burning. Like, I don't want to buy more. The world is burning. I just want to buy. I'm not involved in this type of thing.

[B]

Yeah, well. And I think my last takeaway from this is, like, you don't always want to sell to who people are. You want to sell to who they want to be.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And, like, if you. If you had a brand that was. Would have, you know, affirm, you know, younger millennials and Gen Z's identity as lazy. It's like, well, hold on. None of us want to be lazy. Yeah, we are. But, like, that's something we're trying to wear on our sleeve probably.

[A]

You know, I'm trying not to let people know.

[B]

Like, I, I think so. And like we've talked about it. How many ads these days are like cowboy ranch, western themed?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Because people want to be that guy who work in the office. Like you have a 9 to 5 selling software and they're like, I want that cowboy.

[A]

Yes. Well, and you gotta understand, ideal self is usually the one that marketers go after. It's like you want to be this person. But ideal self sometimes comes across as a little, like preachy. Right. Because it's like be the like, best version of you. Like, here's what, everything's gonna be great. Sometimes people the, the self that they want is just actual self. No, you're fine. The way you are is the messaging that you should use. Right. Everything's good. You're fine exactly the way you are. If once you're ready or if you want to change something, here's something for you. Right. Possibly too. People want to like, be a little bit more dutiful and that would go more towards this ought self, which is more like. Yeah, like guilt kind of a person. So again, I just to layer on top of what Nate said, go after the person they want to be. But you got to figure out which version do they want to be. Ideal self, actual self, or ought self. You can't just always go ideal.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because. Yeah, sometimes it backfires.

[B]

Man, what a good one. Let's do more weird historical pods.

[A]

You want me to go find more? Okay. Really?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think this stuff is so interesting and nobody talks about like the historical.

[B]

Like someone tweeted us if you like this episode.

[A]

Yes. Or tweet me a good story because I, I just find these by like searching on the web.

[B]

If one person tweets at us that we like this episode, we'll do 30 of them. Okay. We'll do so many back to back.

[A]

To back to back. It's all going to be historical stuff. Okay, so last question on this from the takeaway of okay, soda. What are you going to take away and like keep in your little marketing.

[B]

Bag for later market to the more intense emotion.

[A]

Yeah. Active. Oh, I love that. Like, that was like a really good takeaway.

[B]

I think that's such a big thing that I think sometimes like we miss because like we were so many econ brands are so problem solution focused that we get hyper fixated on the problem. But like, you gotta realize your, your customers and prospects are not thinking about this problem all day.

[A]

Nope, nope, nope.

[B]

It is a problem that they might experience daily, but it's not conscious. So, like, if it's not a problem that is already forcing them into some kind of action to fix it, you're gonna have a really hard time building a big brand around it.

[A]

100%. Yep. Yep.

[B]

What an episode. I like this one. Thank you for listening to Brain Driven Brands. Brought to you by Otherside, brought to you by Tether Insights, brought to you by Tactical Impractical.

[A]

I mean, every episode seems to be brought to you by Sex Cumbre. Do you pay us? Is that what's happening?

[B]

No, no.

[A]

Is it a wash? Really? Because you come on the show for free.

[B]

No, no, no, it's fine.

[A]

Thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Appreciate you guys listening. If you want to follow me, me, I'm Sarah Levenger. Anywhere you consume content, he is aytelagos. If you like this show and if you like this episode, go ahead and like, subscribe. Share with a friend. Drop us a review when you have a minute. We would appreciate it. Otherwise, have a great week. We'll see you next time.