“Two Full Glasses, That’s a Lot”

 

pepsi best adPepsi-Cola hits the spot
Two full glasses, that’s a lot
Why take less when Pepsi’s best?

Listening to Counterspy, an old time radio program from the 1940s and 1950s, I was gradually struck by the sponsor’s advertising campaign. Pepsi was the sponsor for several years, and their big pitch in the context of World War II and post-war belt-tightening was that Pepsi was more economical than the unnamed competitors, Coca-Cola and its distinctive bottle first and foremost. Pepsi’s big idea, their play? The original super-sized packaging, the 12-ounce bottle.

The jingles and the script repeatedly pointed to 12 ounces as two servings. That seems strange to us today, but that is because our glassware, our tumblers, our mugs, have grown to accommodate larger portions over the decades. Consider that Coke was mostly purchased in a 6.5-ounce bottle. That was a serving. Think about airlines when they served you cold drinks in plastic cups, the same cups found at the bar of any catered party. Fill the glass with ice and pour soda over the ice. You are getting about half a 12-ounce can.

So, the pitch made sense in the 1940s and early 1950s. “Two six-ounce servings” in a Pepsi bottle meant that a good host or hostess would pick up “a carton of six big bottles for entertainment, that’s 12 sparkling drinks.” Today, we think refrigerator pack, case, or several six-packs for a party or cook-out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Nu9bh4g4Ust&feature=youtu.be

Oh, and Pepsi was sweeter than Coke because it had more sugar. Coke weighed in around 140 calories per 12 ounces, versus Pepsi at 150 calories. So this was a shift from about 70 calories for a Coke bottle to 150 for a Pepsi bottle, if you opened and drank one. Yet, enjoying an extra-large serving was not the pitch 75 years ago.

Two full glasses, that’s a lot
Why take less when Pepsi’s best?

A bit more discovery: Pepsi launched this early cola war with a revolutionary marketing team. They hired African American sales executives and had an associated ad campaign that featured middle-class blacks as normal Americans, even as white segregationists were digging in and doubling down on Jim Crow.

pepsi familyWalter Mack served as the president of Pepsi-Cola Company from 1938 until 1951. Mack was far ahead of his time (and his peers) in recognizing the economic power of black consumers.

It was under his direction that Pepsi kicked off the “cola wars” with a focus on hiring African-American sales executives. He began by hiring Herman Smith in 1940, who was an ad man “from the Negro newspaper field” to help promote Pepsi in African-American communities. By 1948 there were 12 African-American executives selling Pepsi nationwide from corporate headquarters. Remember, this was during the pre-civil-rights era.

Notice the all-American family of husband, wife, and two children, a boy and a girl. Mom is a homemaker and Dad has his starched white shirt and tie firmly in place. Those “6 BIG BOTTLES” cost less than a dollar, but were not second quality stuff. Pepsi was going after both the ethnic majority market, and the untapped rising black community, stealing a march on Coca-Cola while Coke operated out of what was already a center of black economic advancement.

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  1. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    I didn’t know that Pepsi had more sugar than Coca-Cola. That fact made me think of the many crackdowns on alcoholism in the Soviet Union, when people responded by using any sugar source they could find to make their own vodka, which then caused other shortages. I suppose the fact that Pepsi got the famous contract to sell in the Soviet Union didn’t have anything to do with that, though.

    PepsiCo was willing to take Soviet goods in trade for Pepsi concentrate. Donald Kendall’s friendship with Richard Nixon was not a disadvantage. From what I recall, the trade good were primarily vodka and lumber.

     

    • #31
  2. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    I forgot to mention these soft drinks in these bottles went for a nickel each or a six pack for a quarter and a bottle deposit of two cents a bottle if you came without empties.

    I remember when the price went up from a nickel to six cents in my high school vending machine. People still carried pennies to buy the occasional gum ball.

    • #32
  3. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    A long time ago, in a land not too far away…

    I had an after school job at The Magnolia Coca Cola Bottling Co. loading route trucks. Big International Harvester trucks with bodies by Hackney, roll up doors were not a thing then. We’d build pallets by stop and route. One of the permanent staff would load them with a forklift. I did get to gas up the trucks and drive them up into the loading bay. Kinda cool.

    The one perk we enjoyed, we were free to take and drink as much glass bottled soda as we could hold. You could go into the fill room and pull a bottle off the line just before the capper. They bottled Coke in the original six ounce bottle, Sprite and all the Fantas. Even Dr. Pepper in those tall 10 ounce bottles with the 10, 2, 4 marque. The plastic bottles and cans all came from a bottler in Tennessee. It was a smallish family operation about 30 years old. I imagine it’s long gone. 

     

    • #33
  4. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    Special to The New York Times, must credit

    (AP) (Los Angeles) May 10–As night falls on America each night, the nation’s fiber optic cables light up with hate, driven by far, far right websites infested with aging White malcontents. A site called “Ricochet”, started by a Reagan speechwriter and an apostate comedy writer, is one of the poisoned hives of this scary, shadowy group, which at the moment is engaged in a detailed, often highly informed discussion of…

    …Coke, Pepsi, and other carbonated soft drinks, their taste, the feel and the eternal appeal of that cold glass bottle, their manufacture, corporate governance, vivid memories from childhood and adolescence…

     

    • #34
  5. James Lileks Contributor
    James Lileks
    @jameslileks

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Special to The New York Times, must credit

    (AP) (Los Angeles) May 10–As night falls on America each night, the nation’s fiber optic cables light up with hate, driven by far, far right websites infested with aging White malcontents. A site called “Ricochet”, started by a Reagan speechwriter and an apostate comedy writer, is one of the poisoned hives of this scary, shadowy group, which at the moment is engaged in a detailed, often highly informed discussion of…

    …Coke, Pepsi, and other carbonated soft drinks, their taste, the feel and the eternal appeal of that cold glass bottle, their manufacture, corporate governance, vivid memories from childhood and adolescence…

     

    That’s why it’s going to be the Post of the Week. ;) It’s SO Ricochet.

    • #35
  6. Gary McVey Contributor
    Gary McVey
    @GaryMcVey

    James Lileks (View Comment):

    Gary McVey (View Comment):

    Special to The New York Times, must credit

    (AP) (Los Angeles) May 10–As night falls on America each night, the nation’s fiber optic cables light up with hate, driven by far, far right websites infested with aging White malcontents. A site called “Ricochet”, started by a Reagan speechwriter and an apostate comedy writer, is one of the poisoned hives of this scary, shadowy group, which at the moment is engaged in a detailed, often highly informed discussion of…

    …Coke, Pepsi, and other carbonated soft drinks, their taste, the feel and the eternal appeal of that cold glass bottle, their manufacture, corporate governance, vivid memories from childhood and adolescence…

     

    That’s why it’s going to be the Post of the Week. ;) It’s SO Ricochet.

    This particular member speaks with some authority on the veracity of that bit of news!

    • #36
  7. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    Who said we can’t enjoy ourselves while watching the collapse of the republic.

    Juvenal, 37 BCE (possibly)

     

    • #37
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