11/18/14

Pepsi 1957 - The modern, light refreshment.

 Sodey pop. The key to weight loss! To hear Marketing tell it, "reduced" is the same thing as "light". Pepsi is the modern light refreshment!

The Phil Are GO! Research and Googling team was unable to find exact information on the caloric content of Pepsi's 1957 formulation. Nertz. That would have been an interesting read, considering the claims of today's ad.

Still, the basis of the claims here are that "if the calories are reduced, you should assume it's now a low-calorie food". By way of example, 99 is as close as makes no difference to 100, but is still technically less. Pepsi may have reduced the sugar in their recipe by 1% and still be able to make this claim without actually lying. Hoping you'll overlook this fact, and by breezing past the total absence of any useful caloric information, Pepsi presses women's insecurity button by implying that all women should be thin so they can serve as pleasant scenery for men to look at while appreciating trendy music. Nice!

Grammatical note: Maybe 5% of the American population understand the difference between "less" and "fewer". This is pretty commonly heard when discussing calories. "Less calories" is wrong. It should be "fewer calories", because "calories" is plural. If the subject were singular, it would be "less". Things that are counted on-by-one get the word "fewer". Things that are described with the same word if there's one or ten of them get "fewer". Here...

"fewer water"              "less water"
"fewer deer"               "less deer"
"fewer mistakes"        "less mistakes"
"fewer sandwiches"    "less sandwiches"
"fewer calories"         "less calories"
"fewer hours"           "less hours"


But, nobody really pays attention to language any more. Nobody will call you on it if you ignore this rule.

Artistic note: Here's something very common in painted ad art. Carefully chosen detail. The food on the plate gets a half-assed rendering, with only vague "yeah, whatever" gestures of smudgy detail. The Pepsi logo? Sharp as a tack, boy.

Musical note: What are these trendy hipsters listening to? Let's go in for a closer look...

Oooo! They've got the new Handy Ioidll record! That one's burning up the charts! It's so trendy! He's about to put it on right now!
Oh man! They've also got the new popular album by "Jazz". Those guys rock! Well, not exactly. Those guys totally jazz!
"Lot..." "H". We can only assume from this that the Pepsi drinkers will soon be listening to the new release from Lothar of the Hill People. Finally! This one approves!

Lothar of the Hill People, from when Mike Meyers was funny, and had not yet made The Love Guru.

https://screen.yahoo.com/lothar-hill-people-000000257.html




Click for big.



4 comments:

Steve Miller said...

You sure that wasn't Lothar and the Hand People?

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

I would totally watch Lothar and the Hand People. I look forward to the beginning of production.

[-Mgmt.]

Jim D. said...

What is it with the fifties and records scattered all over the floor? and sitting (or lying) on the floor with them? And getting your hamburger-greasy thumbprints all over the records instead of handling them by the edges with fingertips like your father has told you A MILLION TIMES (well, maybe less times then that). Whenever I see pictures of music-consumers in the fifties, that's what I see, and frankly I find it disgusting. You won't catch me licking my iPod anytime soon, I can assure you.

Us 20teenies are so much better than those fifties slobs. And, mp3's has way less calories than vinyl. No, wait. MP3's are far less caloric than vinyl. Whatever.

PhilAreGo@gmail.com said...

Wowzers, Jim. Your comment is a satire wrapped in a whimsy, sucking on a parody. Well done, sir!

[-Mgmt.]

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