Two Designers Walk Into A Bar

Episode 15: OK Soda, Google Glass and the Stories of Two Magnificent Flops

Released June 23, 2021
© 2021 Two Designers Media, LLC

Two designers walk into a Bar is a proud member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. For more information about our show, or to discover more podcasts you'll enjoy, visit evergreen podcasts.com. Okay. Wanna do your clap? Nice. Very nice. Thank you. Okay, now I will. All right. Good to go.

Welcome to two designers walking to a bar, a place where pop culture creatives, discover design icons that make us tick, and we share a few cocktails in the process. Yep. We can argue that most, if not all successful companies pay attention to what they put into the world, their product, brand, customer experience, and other touchpoints.

Are their calling card. Today we discuss what happens when companies do everything right on paper, but the results end up turning out horribly wrong. The cocktail served during today's happy hour will be a mix of craft and humility with a hint of failure. Get the bartender's attention. Place your order and join us once again here in the bar.

Okay, Todd, we're kicking off season two. We're back at the bar and I'm happy to be sitting. Belly up at the bar with you once again. Absolutely, Elliot. It's been a while. Um, thank you to our listeners and our friends who emailed us suggestions during our brief hiatus, and we've got some great ideas coming up in season two and especially today.

Pretty interesting. Uh, topic, huh? Yes. Alright, Todd, so let's jump into our guessing game like we always do, okay? Okay. All right. So I'm gonna give you a couple hints. I'll tipt my hand a little bit. We are in a bar, so I only thought it was appropriate that I do something involving a beverage. Okay? Okay. All right.

So, so we know it's a beverage. Easy. Easy. So, as you know, um, we've talked about our respective ages before. I am firmly and unabashedly. Smack dab in the middle of Generation X. Right, right. So I'm on the, I'm on the forefront of Gen X. You are. Well, I'd rather say that than a boomer. Oh, okay. Yeah. Whatever, whatever.

Boomer. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. The only, uh, what, what would be a, uh, a beverage for boomers? I guess it would be what? Pepto-Bismol or Milk of Magnesia. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. Almond milk. I don't know. Anyway, so when we think about Gen X and we think about a beverage, uh, what, what pops into your head?

So, okay, so I'll, I'll also, this was when like Gen X. This was back when Gen X was hip. So this was when Gen X oh, was the demographic to market to. Like we, we are now, you know, the forgotten demographic, right? So, uh, you, you gotta gimme a year, like, uh, or a range of years. Okay. So, uh, 1990, like the mid nineties, so like 94, 95, that, that era.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So, so like, it's, it's recent enough that you would remember it or hope? Well, I don't, you can't remember what yet for lunch yesterday, so, right, right, right. Um, speaking of milk and magnesia, but what is that? Are we talking about new Coke? No new Coke was 1985, but there is a tie-in to New Coke that I'll talk about in a few minutes.

Okay? Okay. Uh,

Soda. All right. Compared to Gen X. Yeah, I'm sort of, I, I'm, I'm a little lost on this. All right. You're, you know, I, I'll, I'll give you another hint here. So it's getting marketed to Gen X. So this was right around the time the movie Slacker was coming out and all that sort of thing. Okay? So think about like, uh, underground comics, uhhuh, and some of the underground comic artists that were really popular during that time.

Okay. And soda, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, okay. You know, yeah. I don't, I don't know, with those two things, I don't know why you haven't figured it out by now. It's so obvious. Yeah. I mean, all I can think of, you know, are the sort of weird flavors like the, the Mountain Dew Blues and Reds and all those crazy flavors that they were introducing, but I, I can't really think of a major soda manufacturer that had a launch back then.

So the closest, I think it would've come to. Raleigh would've been Atlanta, so that might be another hint, at least in terms of the company that launched this product. Oh, okay. So it was a Coca-Cola company. Um, sounds like it was a offshoot, kind of the, a beginning of the, of the craft movement, um, persona.

Oh, okay. Soda, yes. Yes. And it's one of those things if, if they had sold as many, uh, cans of soda as they had won design awards, they probably would've done pretty well. You know, you know, Elliot, why it took me a minute to, um, to remember that is, um, is here in North Carolina it's known as Okie Dokey Soda.

That's right. That's right. Thumbs up soda. Yes. Um, okay, cool. That's interesting. Yeah. Oh, man. It was beautiful, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, it was all over the place. It was in kids. Again, this is pre-internet, so it was in all the printed design annuals. I mean, it won a bunch of awards and the cans were super cool too.

But what do you have, so our, our topic today, of course, is a lot of design, like a lot of resources have gone into things, and in spite of that design, Uh, you can still go from hero to zero, right? Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, it's interesting, uh, that you picked a okay soda from about that time period. Mine is much newer, and I'm gonna tell you it's a technology product, okay?

And, uh, I'll even tell you that it's from Google. Um, so, you know, they're barely getting by. So this was a desperate attempt and, uh, which is not unusual for technology products to have a lot of hype for launch, but not always work. Yeah. But I'm gonna tell you, this was a, if I say it's a wearable, you'll get it right away now.

So don't say that. We'll edit that part out, okay? Okay. Okay. When you're talking about products, I mean, the first thing that pops into my mind are products like, um, like the Newton for example, you know, from Apple that, oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, right. Like, so it was way ahead of its time. But of course, you know, apple, even back then, you know, they poured all these resources into it, but it was just very, very clunky, you know, the handwriting, recognition and stuff.

So I know it isn't that. And then those guys, of course, went on to form. Palm and the Palm Pilot. Mm-hmm. And I remember that. But it sounds like it's not that much later either. Much later. Okay. Um, fu uh, Is it, um, is it Jawbone? Is it that fitness tracker from Jawbone, the app or whatever? Oh, that's a, that's a really good guess.

No. Um, no, this, uh, this, if you remember, um, back sort of in the, um, uh, 2010, 11, 12, 13, um, Lots of talk around the idea of, uh, we people being, um, being the cursor for, um, for information like getting the, uh, internet off of a computer Oh, into other things like voice recognition and such. Mm. Would this have something to do with augmented reality?

It it did. A portion of it, yes. Would, would there have been perhaps a port man toe of this product's name and the word asshole? Yes. As a matter of fact, we're gonna talk a little bit about glass holes today. Okay. So obviously, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Google Glass.

All right, well, mine, so mine, uh, that I brought today is a little, you know, kind of probably high brow technology. Interesting. Has a bit of a story, uh, of marketing failure, but I don't know much about Okay, soda other than what I saw on the shelves and, uh, uh, in marketing. So I'm eager to hear you tell me more about that.

Okay. Well, um, So if you're Coca-Cola and you're still sort of licking your wounds from the failed, uh, product launch of New Coke, you've, you know, boomerang back to the original Coke formula. Mm-hmm. The guy who launched New Coke comes to you with another product idea. What would you do? Kick his ass outta my office.

Well, Coke did exactly the opposite. They welcomed Sergio Zon with open arms. Nice. And so he came in and he had this. Idea, this beverage idea for a New Cola product marketed basically at Gen X slackers. Okay. Okay. So, um, so here's, here's the deal. This, this is what he figured out, right? So he was working with widening Kennedy, you know, the famous.

Ad shop outta Portland. Right. And, uh, they, they were hired to, to basically market this soda. So they're looking at trying to figure out what to name it. Mm-hmm. And they started to do some research and they determined that the most second well known English language phrase in the whole world is the word Coke.

Mm. Because of Coca-Cola. Okay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And cocaine. What are the two letters in the middle of the word? Coke. Uh, okay. Oak? Yeah. Ok. Yes. Oh, I never, you know what? That's interesting. I never. Uh, put that together. Okay. Well, okay. I know, really, and that, uh, can surprise nobody. And here we are, folks. Yep. And, uh, but okay.

Happens to also be the most well-known English language phrase around the world. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Here we are. So it's sort of like the hidden arrow in the FedEx logo, right? Yeah. Like, so here's your Easter egg. It's kind of hidden in plain sight, right? So w and Kennedy figures this out. So they have their approach in order to market this thing, right?

So they, they get these two guys who are naturally in this Gen X demographic, couple guys in their twenties mm-hmm. Guy named Peter Wegner and a guy named Todd Waterbury. Mm-hmm. And they, they're gonna be the ones who are gonna create this thing. So Wegner is sort of the copy guy. So he writes this brand manifesto and then Waterbury.

Hires the artists, the underground fano, graphics, comics, artists mm-hmm. That are gonna put these portraits of these slackers all over these cans. Um, so the artists are Daniel close. Um, Cal Brown, Charles Burns and David Cow. So you guys, everybody out there Google these guys. Their work is absolutely incredible.

It's, they were very, it's great popular then. They're popular now and then they got, um, their creative director at the time, a woman named Charlotte Moore to do the can layout. Mm-hmm. And the can layouts are super cool as well because they had this very limited color palette. Mm-hmm. It was just black, white, silver, and red.

Mm-hmm. So it was super duper cool. And then each of the cans had a unique design. So like as a design artifact, these cans are amazing. I wanna get into that more in a minute. I want a speaking of design, hear the backstory about Google. Glass.

Here's a little bit about Google Glass. And, you know, I, I'm gonna say the headline is that it was both ahead of its time and behind its time, uh, when it was introduced. And I'll give you a little explanation. So this was part of Google x, part of a Google X initiative, and those are the initiatives for people who aren't familiar with that, um, that are designed to improve life by a factor of 10 instead of 10%.

So hence the X. So as I said earlier, wearable technology and self as cursor and getting the internet off of the computer screens was all the talk in the, um, early teens of, uh, 2000 of this century. And. Google initially launched their prototype to a so-called group of glass explorers in 2013. Now the price tag on this bad boy was $1,500.

And so if you aren't familiar with Google Glass, what it basically is, uh, and this is a real overly simplified description, is, uh, it's a display with smartphone capabilities made into. Eyeglass like shape that you would wear on your face, like eyeglasses. So it became widely hyped, uh, and available after the glass explorers, it became widely available in what they were calling an open beta and about the middle of 2014.

So at that point, the cracks started to show in sort of the product itself. Now, obviously, It was an interesting idea. And it had a lot of possibilities. It definitely had a lot of what if factor to it, but unfortunately they con discontinued the beta just six months after the open beta was available due to privacy concerns and reported bugs and low battery life and being banned in public spaces.

Yeah, I think people were u kind of using them or could use 'em for very sneaky things. Right. Yeah. Well, it made making porn a lot easier, you know? Um, because yeah, I mean, you could just follow people around. Yeah. Like, weren't, weren't they scared of people using them in like dressing rooms and retail store stores?

Yeah. And restrooms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they were outlawed in bars and so here's hey, here, kinda like us. So we're glass holes Allison. Um, so yes, and, and you know, if I remember, didn't Google basically, so like, you know, because you were initially part of this open beta or this, this beta program. They basically like by calling at that, even though you paid 1500 bucks for these things, weren't they still Google's property and you had to give them back?

Yeah, so it was, it was sort of a, um, a trifecta of looseness all kind of coming together there. So first of all, it was, it was $1,500, so it was a premium priced item. Um, it definitely had bugs. It caused privacy concerns. It, you know, it was, it was ahead of its time in, um, helping us understand privacy concerns that we didn't know we would have to worry about.

Sure. Someone wearing a camera into the bathroom. Um, and, uh, it was a little on the let's how we would. Say not cool side. Um, in that if you were wearing them, it was pretty clear that you were wearing, um, you know, a, uh, a miniature computer on your face. Mm-hmm. Um, so it was, uh, the beta was discontinued. Um, For those reasons I mentioned, and it just was not living up to the hype, um, that Google was putting out there and some of the glass explorers were putting out there, um, as this was literally being called the next revolutionary.

Uh, technology. Now I'm gonna say that this could have been a real death nail for this particular product because big fat launch and then sort of zero glam right into the side of the Hollywood sign. Um, just you mean that you don't you mean the Hollywood land sign? The Hollywood land sign? Yeah. But Google persisted and you know, good on 'em for that.

They launched another iteration of it that had some design, let's say, tweaks to it, and up now until May, 2019, Google had announced that the Google Glass Enterprise Edition was launching. So we don't hear from Google on Google Glass. In a big way, in a mass market way. They've really sort of pulled, um, the circle together and helped redefine what the future of Google Glass was.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, Elliot, hold on. That doesn't sound like a failure, right? I mean, that's kind of like technology advance, it sounds like. Um, a few people, uh, gave them some valuable input on the prototype. Yeah. It's a beta program after all, right? Yeah. Except it was not sold like that.

It was again, it was, um, they got caught up in the marketing and instead of being realistic and saying, this is a working prototype for the future and keeping the circle small, they hyped it as a finished product and gave it a huge sticker price, as I said. So again, what you have is this. Product that has this air of high-end super premium price tag, but it was really kind of still buggy and I, I shorten it like this.

It was a very cool tactic looking for a strategy. Mm. I see. Yeah, so, and, and so I'm, I'm not the only genius that has said this. Um, ID CEO Tim Brown, who, you know, I mean, I have to watch what I say all the time around him. Of course, I'm kidding. Obviously, I don't know Tim Brown, wish I did. Um, but he had a really cool quote that said, Glass's problem is that the technology today simply doesn't offer anything that average people really want, let alone need in their everyday lives.

It's an interesting idea. Nice to look at, but not really thorough. Yeah, it's a solution looking for a problem. Exactly, exactly.

Todd, speaking of flops and failures, I just realized I failed to get the bartender's attention. Okay, Elliot, while you're doing that, let's take a quick break. Join us back at the bar in just a minute. Get Ready for Bad Friends. A podcast hosted by comedians Andrew Santino and Bobby Lee watches these two put their love hate relationship on display For the world to enjoy.

Bad Friends is coming to Deepak on Wednesday, April 26th. Tickets are on sale now@daknc.com. That's dpa cnc.com.

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Are we done? We're done. We're done.

So I wanna hear more about Okay, soda, because it sounds like there's some drama on the line with that, and I'd like to know more. And then, uh, we, I can wrap up, uh, Google Glass telling you where it stands today. Sure. So as I mentioned earlier, why and Kennedy, this ad agency calls these underground illustrators, you know, because they need to have this street cred, this slacker street cred.

Who better to do that than this handful of, uh, You know these illustrators and so Daniel close, you know, you probably know him, eight Ball Comics, the movie Ghost World, which is one of my favorite movies. Maybe we'll talk about that again. At some point he was asked later like, why he decided to do this and he basically, you know, because the whole idea of this, of course, is it's coke.

It's the man, it's corporate America. Mm-hmm. You're this underground artist and you're selling out to this corporate client. Right. So when Close was asked, why did you do this? He's like, it paid well far more than I was making with my comics. I think he said it, uh, it was paid more than the last, like four comics projects he had done combined.

Wow. And also he loved the idea of being subversive. Mm-hmm. And doing something for Coke, where some of it could be, um, Some of the subversion could sort of be hidden in plain sight and he could stick it to the man. So for example, the character that he drew, he made sure that it had a face with the eyes in the nose, uh, of the vacant stare of Charles Manson, which I think is amazing.

I think that's brilliant. Yeah. And then so I, I don't even know if he ever until that interview, like, I'm not sure he ever told, like the wine and Kennedy folks that, you know, I think he just sort of did it and if they didn't catch it, so be it. Um, Then the copy, the copy itself was very surreal and very subversive, so it centered around their whole campaign.

This was printed on the cans. This was in like radio ads, I think it was TV spots and all this stuff. You know, so keep in mind, this is pre-internet, right? There are print ads, and it was all centered around these coincidences and these. Very un profound, profound sort of quips, right? So here's an example of one.

So again, this is, uh, ad agency slacker speak. All right? Uh huh. Okay. Buckle up. This is, this is my moment. All I'm, well, this is, this is' climbing up onto the podium. Great. This, and this is right in your demo. So I, this is, yeah, this isd, this is the voice of authenticity right here, Todd. All right. The 91st tried.

Okay. Soda Rick, B of Aurora, Colorado. Put a full can under his pillow and went to sleep. He dreamed he was crawling through an endless gravel pit, parched with thirst. When he awoke, his thirst had disappeared and he felt strangely satisfied. Note the can of okay, still unopened was empty. This is only a coincidence.

So, okay. This is great. Sounds like fucking ghosts. Yeah, it does. Yeah. It's like, man, yeah. It's like, Hey, we're giving you this haunted soda you drink up, you know? Yeah. And he, and he woke up with a pillow in his mouth. Yeah. Yeah. And he was, yeah, he had a ball gag in his mouth and he was chained up in the, oh my god.

In the basement or something. Laughable. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's just, it's totally surreal, right? Um, yeah. So then, as I mentioned a moment ago, this pre-internet, right? Mm-hmm. How do you make this interactive? Like how do you know if this is actually working Well, hello Todd. You have an 800 number that people can call.

Okay? Of course. And the, the number was one 800. I feel. Okay. I haven't called it recently. So I don't know where it goes today, but if someone wants to call and report back to us, that would be amazing. Do you think Koch is working on another soda as we speak? Um, that's called, I feel me. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Catered to the Jewish slacker population. The me or, you know, the, the French slacker. Sk, you know. Yeah, exactly. I dunno, you know, the existential dilemma of, you know, hand cigarettes and. I, I didn't quite get, why would I call the 800 number? Uh, you know, I think cuz you had to report your own coincidences, like your own experiences with the soda.

Oh my God. They did, they totally took the brand, uh, manifesto of Okay. Soda from the movie Slacker, didn't they? So apparently, you know, it's funny you mentioned that apparently Wegner, the copywriter, he was reading books on like da, da, art and all this different stuff, Uhhuh and just assemblage and nonsense and putting different things together.

So it was the anti advertising advertising campaign. So these guys were kind of in a pickle because Gen X, as you know, you're part of it. I'm part of it. We've been marketed to our whole lives, right? Mm-hmm. We lived through the eighties. Mm-hmm. When brands exploded. I mean, Todd, you and I offline, not, not in this podcast.

We've talked before about Coca-Cola clothing and all these sorts of things, right? Right, right. So it's like, you know, kind of like you were mentioning earlier with Google Glass, where it's like, you are the computer, you are the cursor. In the eighties it was very much, you are the billboard, right? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. So you go into the nineties, And you know, if you're a college kid or just outta college, you just think all this stuff is straight up bullshit, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, you know, you totally have your guard up. You're not gonna. Try to even receive any sort of message. So another thing, so there were TV commercials mentioned that a minute ago.

Yeah. We'll have some links on our episode page to to TV ads. There were also chain letters. Now who they sent these to and how, like, I guess, so there were these test markets, right? So they, they looked at like where like, Hipsters were hanging out. So like, you know Seattle, think about like reality bites and all that kind of stuff.

Right, right, right. Denver, Austin. So the closest that came to me was Cincinnati. I don't remember Cincinnati being any kind of Gen X, slacker Haven, but you know, whatever. Um, Uh, you know, maybe Columbus, I would think with Ohio State, but Cincinnati right was chosen, and, uh, Cincinnati it was, but I never saw the soda in the flesh, unfortunately.

So this was launched, so Sergio Ziman, the, the, the genius, the, the beverage luminary I mentioned earlier. So, This was launched in July, 1994, and it was gone like a fart in the wind by September of 1995. Right. Oh my God. A little over a year. Oh my gosh. Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So it's, it's totally, totally crazy.

So basically at the end of the day, uh, it, it didn't, it didn't work. Yeah. And so, so naturally we have to unpack like, what are the reasons. This didn't work. Um, and then the, the reasons apparently are manifold. So, so here we go. We can, we can start to jump in here. So basically in 14 months, so a little over a year.

Um, mm-hmm. A million cases were shipped and you know, when you think, wow, okay, a million cases of anything, that sounds pretty good, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, I mean, if you or I started a beverage company and in 14 months shipped a million cases, we would be ecstatic, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I went back and I did some research on this, and I was thinking, how many cases of beverages were shipped by Coke overall in North America?

Uh huh. So give a wild guess. So if a million cases were a failure, yeah. How many collectively, how many cases of Coke? And I'm just talking about the United States and the Caribbean. I'm not even talking about Canada and Mexico. Okay. Just in the north. Uh, well, United States and Caribbean. Um, for, I'm sorry, did you say a year?

Yeah, one year. And specifically 1994. Oh, okay. Uh, well, I mean, if, if a million is a flop, it would have to be easily a hundred million cases. 1.6 billion, what? 1.6 billion cases. And that's not global. That's the US and the Caribbean. Damn. We some sugar water drinking folks. Yeah. So now you start to understand that was a rounding error for Coke, right?

Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And the, and all the attention and, um, the, the hype that they put into okay, soda, I imagine they weren't expecting it to be a little sort of hidden craft brand. They wanted to get some, uh, Uh, some big news out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They didn't want this to be like the Sam Adams of, uh, you know, beverages.

Right. They wanted this to go big, um, because at the time, gen X was just coming into all their buying power. Right, right, right. So this, this leads to problem number two, Uhhuh, because it was on the surface, so silly. The demographic it actually appealed to was Gen Y. So like the little brothers and little sisters of Gen X, Uhhuh Uhhuh.

But the problem is these kids were all too young to actually buy anything, so they loved the way that it looked and it was crazy, you know, cuz probably. If a lot of the ads and stuff were a lot like kids' TV shows or something, it was like, probably like the PeeWee's playhouse of uh, beverage commercials.

Right, right, right. You know, they were just like, ah, this is da on kind of abstract and non-sequitur. Okay. Whereas, you know, gen X was busy, you know, listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana and just didn't care, you know, they were hitting everything, man. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so. Todd, reason number three, Uhhuh.

Speaking of Gen X. Alright, so I'm gonna dig back. I'm gonna roll back a little bit. Okay. To our buddy from our, um, from our poster episode. Yeah. I should say specifically your buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Your buddy Shepherd. Oh, shepherd Fair. Mr. Fairy. Yes. Yeah. So he felt that the whole Okay. Campaign was co-opting his Obeyed Giant campaign.

No. All right. Kidding. Really? Yeah, because you think about it, there were these like large portraits of people. They were looking out instead of obey, it said, okay, in this big bold, sandsara type. Mm-hmm. Again, limited color palette, red and black. Mm-hmm. Like I talked about his, uh, a lot of his artwork was red and black.

So two of the test markets happened to be, Providence in Boston, Uhhuh, which is where, at that point, he hadn't moved out to the west coast yet. So, you know, he went to risd. So like that was his part of the world. So he would vandalize the, okay, billboards and ads. He would see. He created like wheat paste stickers, uhhuh, and in the box, like, so the logo was this, the letter's.

Okay. In a rectangle and he made obey in the same typeface and he would paste it in the same box. Oh, nice. And then over the illustration, he would paste an illustration of Andre the Giant. So it was nice Gen X again, kind of taking things into their own hands. Yeah, it was so great. All right, now, And this is really the main reason, right?

Uh, at the end of the day, it tasted like shit. Oh, no kidding. What? Like what the flavors, do you remember when you were a little kid and you know, you had the opportunity when it was a novelty to go to the soda fountain and fill it yourself, you know, fill the cup yourself. Yeah. And you would like, There were like, you know, eight or nine or 10.

There was like root beer and orange drink and coke and this and that. Yeah. Sprite. And you'd make a suicide? Yes. With all of So that, believe it or not, that was what the flavor profile of Okay. Soda was inspired by. So is like the leftovers of everything else. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. No, you can't.

It was like they interviewed. Um, guys your age and said, you know, what do you remember about your childhood when you went to a skating rink? Yes. Well, I would, I would have a dollar and I would have to buy a soda, but I couldn't decide which one, so I got a little bit of all of them. And then with the leftover money, I had a melted snow cone and I'd dumped that in the cup too.

Yeah. And they're like genius. Right, right. Sergio, you are still a genius. So, uh, another swing and a miss for our friend Sergio. Um, now I will say though, as I mentioned earlier, the design. And the writing, and we'll have samples on our episode page. It was great. I mean, yeah, Todd, I'm sure you remember it. It won a boatload of Dove Design Awards, right?

It was in communication arts. It got like a D N A D pencil. Um, you know, these guys all got paid, as I mentioned earlier. It was just amazingly executed, but at the end of the day, it was just, The craft was great. The tactics were poor, and the product itself was just straight up terrible.

Interesting. Interesting. So, so there's some similarities with Google Glass and, um, the one thing that is different, uh, I imagine because of the time period, okay. Um, soda probably had, uh, some pretty big cultish like following, right. Because it was, it was a soda that spoke to, to people. Yeah. You, I'm sure you can't get it anymore, right?

Well, so occasionally, so it's funny, when I was doing research for this episode, I found a guy who still had kept a can for like 25 years, and this might be the ultimate, surreal irony. Mm-hmm. When he went back and unearthed the can, it was still sealed up and much like that. Uh, coincidence copy I mentioned earlier, it was in fact empty and his thirst was quenched.

I think he was just super confused because the can was still unopened. But yeah, it, uh, stuff still does turn up periodically on eBay. Um, I have found, uh, I found things like, um, and I'll, I'll post a picture to this. There was like an original, uh, okay. Promo pack Uhhuh that came from Coca-Cola, like with an envelope and these decals and yeah, I mean, they were going all out.

There were some cool stuff, for sure. Nice, nice. Well, uh, let me put a, uh, a little. Period at the end of where we are with Google Glass now, um, much like okay, soda, uh, it was theoretically, um, should be a, a huge success. It caught sort of wind of the times. It was, uh, seemingly solving a, a, a problem and, okay, soda's case, a brand issue, a belonging problem, um, in Google Glass.

It was, um, Freeing you up to to see more, do more. Um, but again, as you talked about, there were multiple, uh, reasons it failed and I've already said those. Basically it was not really meant for mass consumption. Uh, it was expensive and, um, it was intrusive anyway, not at that particular moment. Um, it was, as I said a little while ago, Google was both behind the times and ahead of the times, but it'll be back.

Um, the company re did a release. This, this, this is where we should have the, uh, the Jaws theme music start. Okay. Okay. I like that. Or Terminator, I'll be back. It'll be back. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Um, the company did a release in May of 2019 that said the second version of its enterprise edition model, um, is in the works and would be out, and the pair of glasses are advertised.

As a risk free means of increasing productivity in the workspace. So the way that they are approaching it now is not for, you know, the common guy who's wearing Google glass, the common glass hole. Wearing Google glass out to a bar and trying to look hip and cool while also looking pervy. Um, but it gives you a screen that allows employees to multitask, uh, without turning onto a phone or another program or another computer.

And it also now has, uh, as you started in the beginning, it has augmented reality and virtual reality capabilities. Um, as well as improved processors and cameras, and they have partnered with eyeglass designers to make them a little bit more fashion forward. Now, that remains to be seen because again, they sort of jumped in the fashion world early, but realizing that Google Glass was not a fashion statement, but nonetheless, they have gone back and really redesigned it.

From a lot of different aspects, but I can imagine that this. Well, I'm probably not commercially available anytime really soon for you and for me, but I think it would gain a lot of popularity and serve a great need to folks like surgeons or engineers or uh, people that fix highly detailed, um, machines.

People that help, uh, design circuit boards, things like that. Things where, as part of your job you have to take in and you have to, uh, understand lots of information at a time without being distracted. You know, a, as you're talking about this, two things pop into my head. I'm gonna go back and I think Terminator is the right music choice because it sort of sounds like that's what the display is gonna be.

Or it's sort of like neo in the matrix where you need to Yeah, in a pinch, learn how to fly a helicopter. Yeah. Yeah. Good one. Good one. Um, so those are a couple things, uh, that I saw tie in our magnificent Flops episode together. And, you know, there are plenty other products out there that fit into this category.

Some that, uh, I, I want you to name one and I'll name one and I'll start by saying New Coke. Oh man. Okay. I'll, I'll counter your new Coke with Crystal Pepsi. Oh. Which I've actually had, I did have that when I was in college. You did? Yeah, it is. Uh, oh man. Nothing to write home about. Okay. Um, do you remember the me d l t and the Arts deluxe?

Yeah. I mean, that was Jason Alexander's big, uh, coming out. Right? He was in the original mcd l T ad. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these packaging. Yes. So, you know, couple, couple of these. Of course we, we mentioned earlier, like, you know, the Newton and Jawbone. Mm-hmm. But, uh, of course there was, you know, the segueway like that kind of ended up going, going nowhere.

It's, that was my segway pun, you see? Oh, oh. Too soon. Too soon. Well, some of my other favorites too. Um, and we'll post, uh, pictures to these because I don't think you can buy them anymore, is Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water. Which, you know, you're selling water with a beer name and you're wondering why people aren't buying it.

Um, and then one of my Harley Davidson perfume, which, oh my god, the fuck does that smell like,

um, smells probably smells like an airport runway or something. I don't even know. Um, and, you know, one of the all-time best flops, hyped flops. Is part of a, of a McGuffin and, uh, a movie that that, uh, is part of pop culture in it Back to the Future. Yeah. The DeLorean. So, uh, I actually know, uh, a woman here in Winston-Salem, who his brother owned six DeLorean.

Wow. Wow. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Um, I remember visiting the, um, the lot where they were selling DeLorean. And, um, the salesperson was kind of, I mean, obviously me and my family didn't look like we would be buying a DeLorean, but the salesperson was really into telling us about it. And, um, it was stainless still, if I remember.

Mm-hmm. And he said if it got sort of a nick or a scratch, you just would take steel wool and uh, you know, get it out. And my dad being a car guy. The idea of taking steel wool to a car. Uh, it, it, it, it, he almost curled up in the fetal position as driving. I can only imagine. He probably like projectile vomited on the salesman.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, all right, Elliot, this has been fun and, uh, I feel like I, I learned something today, so thanks for spreading a little knowledge on me. Uh, likewise, Todd, this was, this was really great. I think what we need to do is, uh, get out our cans of Okay. Soda stroll back over to the bar and see if we can't mix ourselves an interesting cocktail.

I think we should. And, um, you know, I'm not gonna use any Cheetos lip balm this time. That just is not gonna play well. No, I don't think so either. Back to the bar.

Hi podcast listeners. I'm Carol Costello, a former CNN n Anchor and National Correspondent. This January I'm launching a podcast about one of the first cases I ever covered as a journalist. It's one that stuck with me all of these years. The one that buried itself under my skin and stayed put. It's a true crime series about an amazing woman named Phyllis Coddle, who defied torture and death and brought a fierce rage to the quest to find her attacker.

Carol Costello presents Blind Rage as a production of Evergreen podcast and signature title of the Killer Podcast Network. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Discover more great true crime and paranormal programming@killerpodcast.com. Two designers walk into a bar is a proud member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network.

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