I hate that I’m so susceptible to gimmicky, weird food promotions, because now I want to try this soda knowing full well I almost definitely won’t like it.

Honestly, something like OK's advertising would probably succeed in the post-internet, irony-poisoned landscape we live in now. It's weird and off-putting, which somehow makes it vaguely appealing.

I thought she just edited the OK face over hers in the thumbnail i didn’t expect it to be makeup scared the shit right out of me

Putting an image of a cult leader on a soda can actually sounds like a really interesting and thought provoking art piece. But the fact that Daniel Clowes was able to make a cult leader the mascot of an actual real life soda brand created by Coca-Cola and was advertised and sold to the public?!?? I’M FUCKING SPEECHLESS!!! 🤯😳

If OK Soda came out today it'd be so popular and successful, I swear. Like even just the soda machines look like they've been taken out of some alternate reality and placed in ours. I don't even _like_ soda and I'd still probably try the Funny Postmodern Dystopia Beverage™.

The marketing for this looks like a modern analog horror series about evil soda

This has the same energy as the failed fast food chain Rax making their mascot a middle aged man complaining about his life and having the slogan "You can eat here."

Brands trying to use post-modernism for marketing purposes is always funny and terrifying. If they succeded, and other began copying OKSoda, what would the advert world look like. Edgy teen paradise lost.

I got totally swept up in OK Soda, I was in middle school at the time and had just discovered They Might Be Giants so I was primed for weirdness, and that summer I remember spending the 4th of July calling the 800 number relentlessly, going down every path of the phone tree leaving recordings about my OK theories and experiences (it was interactive, and I would love to know what happened to all of those recordings). I remember my theory of the recipe (and what I made for a while afterwards as a consolation prize after it disappeared) was Dr. Pepper + cold and very intensely steeped Red Zinger tea (hibiscus) I did NOT know about the model for the mascot though, that's pretty forked up.

Can you imagine a world where OK took off and wound up influencing the advertising industry to all mimick the trend? We could be living in a world where every billboard, every bus stop, every mobile app pop up ad is just black and white paragraphs of existential dread. At least then, advertisements might be a little more honest about the end product than the overpromises we tend to get.

I 100% drank this when I was like 14. It’s the advertising that sold me. It did not taste good at all. But my friends and I wanted to be ironic and different. Plus, we would call the 800# all the time. I guarantee Daisy would’ve drank OK Soda😂

The advertisements look like if police sketches of the zodiac killer starred in an Archie comic about the scp foundation

I was in the exact age group they were targeting. I remember being annoyed that I was clearly being pandered to and that it was working.

Okay this advertisement strategy would absolutely work today because people are obsessed with ARG, true crime, unsolved mystery, analog horror, liminality, uncanny valley, dystopian, conspiracy theory core, “have you seen this man” type of content. I almost wish some indie art project would try to revive this concept cause honestly I’m kinda interested just from this video lmao.

This story is so wild! But ngl the cans look really dope (cult leader aside). I could totally see this working more as a limited-time collection than an separate brand of soda.

I was a 17 year old boy in 1993. How was I at the dead center of the target demographic for this product but have never heard about it until 2022?

The drawings of people on the cans looks like those composite sketches police use to find missing people . . .

Buying a soda, getting merch and money to get an actual soda, sounds great to me.

The range of topics you cover on Dapper History is astounding! Thanks for telling this tale of corporate confusion, marketing madness, and a bunch of boomers trying to pander to the Grunge generation.

Gen x wasn't ready. But gen z is. Coke just needs to try again. I mean we throw back bang energy like there's no tomorrow so clearly we're not concerned with good tastes.

Honestly I fuck with the aesthetic design of those cans, they remind me of my childhood where I read Scott McCloud’s books on writing comics over and over

I feel like this would be pretty successful if it happened now. OK Soda was so ahead of its time

my favorite was “don’t be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything”

I was in my early twenties then - why the hell have I never heard of this? It would have been right up my alley as a weirdo. Also, absolutely brilliant make-up job. It really popped when the video switched to black-and-white.

You had a high mark for fantasy make-up, but with this I feel you have shattered the ceiling. Spectacular comic-scribble effect, loved it!

I’m gonna sound so annoying but I genuinely like the design for those cans. I totally would’ve been their biggest customer just because the cans looked cool and I would’ve gaslit myself into liking the taste. Thank God OK is discontinued and I can just do that with kombucha instead

I loved ok soda but I was a disaffected sophmore boy in HS at the time. And I actually liked how it tasted. Yes, some would say it tasted like a "suicide" (all the flavors of a soda dispenser mixed). I liked the fact that every sip seemed to be a different flavor and it would even seemingly change depending on the persons mood (hehe). Im not sure any of us knew that the mascot was inspired by Charles Manson, but even now I dont think the cartoon boy really looked that much like him. Certainly it resembled nothing of the CHarles Manson we knew in 1993.

You really underrate how much we get attached to brand identity. Monster Energy exploited it perfectly, for example. Same thing as OK Soda, just with marginally better flavour.

OK is OLL KORRECT!!!!!! i like how they brought on cartoonists for this... the artist of the famous body horror comic Black Hole where teens get mutated, jumped out at me too, which is also a strange creative choice if you wanted to market soda to people

THE HOTLINE THOUGH. I called it constantly as a college student. It was so random - I heard about it through word of mouth, and had zero idea what it was about. I never encountered OK Cola itself in the wild. I just knew there was a number you could call that had weird stories on a recording and was kind of obsessed with the word "OK." Shades of Dr Bronner - deeply weird and surreal with kind of an uncanny, paranormal vibe, totally unconnected to the product. Just the sort of things you associate with "OK" and drinking soda!

Thumbs up for DR. PEPPER. DR. PEPPER IS LIFE

I just love how you can graph the steady loss of sanity through all these videos

Too far ahead of its time. Even today, in a post post-ironic culture, this would've made waves. Not as irony but as _grandma's attempt at irony_

Oh HELL! I loved OK cola! I lived in a small Southern town and, for some reason, our Piggly Wiggly sold it. The Daniel Clowes artwork drew me in right away! It tasted alright, if I remember correctly. Anyway, I miss it.

That makeup is an incredible technical feat, but also absolutely terrifying. I will be seeing it in my sleep tonight. Great job

Ngl the art looks _really_ cool. I feel like it was wasted.

This campaign sounded so unique and very cool. I'd love to see a full set of cans and read the coincidences. It's like the crazy blurb on Mother energy cans

Your makeup in this looks like if Cats took place in the A-Ha Take on Me comic world

I’m getting real Project Mayhem vibes from that manifesto, jfc. I’d have half expected one of those cans to start scrolling through some basehead ramble of how domesticated animals have forward-facing eyes and so do humans, instructing me to thus consider who or what is domesticating us, hammering its call to action into my 1100 lunch break to rise up and put my fork through our corporate cattle drivers…by buying lots of coke ;) I can honestly see why people collect some of this shit now but I cant imagine how alarming this must have been actually living through it 💀

I know its been like 2 years but i remember as a kid trying OK soda and remember it distinctly had a flat coke taste but was properly carbonated. Its like the tuned the recipe to taste like flat coke while carbonated. The fruity orangy splash is accurate

Your makeup is absolutely incredible and a little unnerving. Never heard of this in the UK, was it limited to the US only?

"I'm just tasting it with my mouth. That's how drinks work." 🤣🤣🤣 This really got me together today.

wow i had never ever heard of this but it actually seems incredibly amazing .. a marketing disaster for sure but it really did seem fun and creative ...

I was wondering why the art work looked so familiar when I had never heard of ok soda but knowing Daniel Clowes illustrated it explains everything (love ghost world)

Omg the makeup. How? Like I-

I was already thinking how much I needed a shirt with the can art on it halfway through the video, honestly I think if coke sneakily brought this back now, it would be an embarrassingly huge success (if it didn’t taste awful)

the subjects you cover in this series are always so interesting and exactly up my alley, not to mention the amazing (and accidentally charles manson-inspired) makeup looks. in short i'm saying your channel is my absolute favourite on youtube

Babe wake up new Jules Dapper upload

First five seconds and I’m already scared, this is gonna be a great video.

idk why but "or should i say: coke's person" fucking broke me. it caught me off guard

I was 10 when this came out and I remember being totally captivated by the marketing.. the commercials were cryptic and intriguing.. and I'd sit there calling 1 800 I feel ok over and over listening to the recordings of strange happenings to be people while drinking ok soda. ..side note.. that filter on your face unlocked a new fear.. I had to turn off my screen and just listen.

This reminds me of a... I think it was a Fanta add? They were announcing a mystery flavour (I think it was blue so it probably just tasted like cough medicine with far too much sugar. No ofense to Jules but that's what I felt Dr Pepper tasted like when I tried it at an american themed diner. RIP to the birthday girl who actually ordered it and was forced to drink it all), they gave a number to call, etc... but it was so happy go lucky and so painfuly, well, an add, that I couldn't help but roll my eyes everytime I saw it. But this? While I'm pretty sure OK Coke never got to my country, this actually seems to do that ''mystery'' concept pretty well. The aesthetic really caught my eye. I'm happy people apreciate it's weirdness. Edit: And!... Before I forget. The makeup is just perfect. I spent the first minute of this video ignoring the actual video content while I tried to understand if it was some weird filter or pure talent for makeup. Unsurprisingly, it was pure talent.

I’d rather have a Mug Moment over an OK Moment

Hi, Gen Xer here, I was like 13 when it came out, it was pretty decent, it was basically orangey Dr. Pepper (I never got much Coke/cola flavor from it). The problem with it was it was something you kinda had to be in the mood for, wasn't really an every day drink.

yo your makeup/facepaint is so!! i was busy looking at it the whole video it's so good

ngl that campaign woulda worked on me

this video is 2 years old but that makeup at the beginning already made me amazed bc how much it took to look like you were meant to be put on an ok soda can

Now Pepsi gotta start putting cartoon Hitler on their cans to stay competitive.

I clicked purely because of the thumbnail (and the fact that it’s your content) and I genuinely thought you were cosplaying the One Punch Man “OK” meme. Still loved the video though lol

One of my favorite things about ok soda is that people are either obsessed with it, or have zero idea that it ever existed

ive been quoting "IM A PROUD DR PEPPER PERSON" since this video came out to anyone who'll talk to me

the "ive heard" after you showed off the cans made me jump so hard I THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS BEHIND ME

OK Soda belongs in OmegaMart and nowhere else.

why do the coincidences sound like scp entries lol. also the art went so hard OF COURSE one of the biggest drink corporations sold dystopian soda. i bet you soda in a dystopia would taste like ok soda

So cool you’re talking about this!!! Im still holding out on finding a Daniel Clowes illustrated can somewhere, somehow lol

8:30 HAHA OMG HAHAHA btw I had no idea the make up was in likeness to that picture until you had up the side-by-side screenshot lol...

the campaign's good, they just didn't naik the timing. Should've waited till tiktok came around

I see the video, think, oh, that's a cool super-imposed face... "HI!" Best jump-scare i had in a while.

Peter Wagner was like:"Some of my competitors are alright,don't come to The Buisness Conference tomorrow."

Me: man that logo guy looks like Mathew LeBlonc Jules: “it’s Charles Manson” Me: 👁👄👁

"The spokespeople at Coke... Or should I say Cokespeople?" It's too late. She's grown too powerful to contain.

I actually enjoyed the drink when I was younger. The advertising was on point. The drink can literally be described as "ok". Thats exactly what I said when I first tried it. It's "ok". The taste did grow on me though. I own quite a bit of OK soda merch, including one of the 5 original can color keys. They had such an aggressive marketing campaign. Coke always had some wild marketing. From the t-shirts in vending machines, to the "MagiCan" that could literally kill you, never a dull moment.

I'm so fucking glad this showed up in my feed. There's an unopened prize can on Ebay for like 500 USD and part of me wants tot get it. Utterly reckless, but tempting.

I wish someone would bring back the prize cans,it sounds like a dope idea

Jesus christ I didn't even notice which channel this was. That's an amazing make up work

I HAD NEARLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THIS SODA. *edit* I legit used to buy this back in the day because of Clowes' art. I had no idea about the Manson part.

I can see this kind of branding working with a beer company tbh. I think it looks really cool! 👀

Ah the memories of walking around a tiny upper midwestern town at night with my friend drinking OK soda and using phone booths to call the 1-800 # and just enjoy the ironic weirdness. Seriously, the best thing about this whole thing was the very odd 1-800 number line.

What a weird coincidence. I was just watching Waiting for Guffman, (which I've never seen before) and in the background you can see an OK cola machine. I go to look for videos on the subject...and you put one out 7 days ago? On a product that has been dead for 30 years. Weird.

i got jumpscared by the thumbnail

the funny thing is that the whole thing is so quintecentially gen X, just gen X in the 90s. Like, it's the apathy and the irony for me. I just picture grunge kids and like, the characters from tower records finding it cool or something.

The point of ok soda was not just to be a beverage... But to be an experience. They wanted to build a community. They wanted collectors. Very quirky, and while they may not have been successful selling soda cans... It definitely made history as one of the most unique marketing failures of all time.

Another banger Jules. Well done :)

If i had a nickle every time a big soda corporation released a manifesto i would have two nickles wich isnt a lot but its weird that it happened twice

Can we acknowledge how fantastic this makeup look is?!?!!

OK Soda tasted really good. I was fortunate enough to live in one of the markets that tested it. People don't talk about it because it was never rolled out nationally - it was only ever in test markets. I'm sorry, but the claim that OK Soda was Coke's biggest commercial failure is laughable.

I remenber OK soda being just...OK. It very much did taste like a mix of flat orange soda, flat coke, and flat Fresca with some carbonation added afterward. What's funny is while Wiki says it ended in '95 the whole campaign only lasted seven months, and it was never released to the wider public. In my area (Rhode Island) you could only find it in Coke machines located in Wal-Marts, Hot Topic, and Newbury Comics (the latter two serving younger 'edgier' male-centric crowds).

ok so I paused to read some of the "coincidence" examples, and honestly? I kinda want this product to return just for the stories. Like, going to bed with a full can of soda under your pillow and waking up "suddenly refreshed" with the unopened can being empty??? That's some analog horror shit. That's some SCP shit. I literally love that. Some of those stories give me actual chills lmao Like I can totally see the *intent* behind what they were doing here, they just executed terribly. "Buy this product! It's...well it's okay. I guess."

Ha, thanx for the trip down memory lane lol! I was one of the kidz Coke was advertising to, 'cept in a age of anti corporate/anti consumerism i wasn't drinking wat they were selling. Now that's not to say i wouldn't buy a can or two if they put it out there for a limited time ala Crystal Pepsi/Pepsi Blue, ironically of course lol.

im so incredibly glad i found this channel. ur videos r so interesting!

Bahahahahahaha! Damn you got me! It looks like AI made your makeup! Terrifying!

All that black, white and red OK soda stuff looks almost like it's from an alien planet. 👽🥤

I love Daniel Clowes, one of my favourite comic writers. Ghost world is phenomenal, as is Like a velvet glove cast in iron which a lot of the illustrations are from. It's very on brand for him to pull this, his early work is intensely cynical. Definitely check out his newest novel Monica, it's fantastic.

a teddy bear might think 'i sure like being furry.' a stuffed dog might think 'bow wow. bow. wow.' a pretend stuffed person might think 'hey, i don't have to go to school. i never have to get a job. but i am rather small, and i have no elbows, or knees. oh well. i'm sure things are going to be *OK*

If this was released today, I’d 100% buy it. This advertising is awesome and feels extremely contemporary in its ironic, meta deconstructionism. The fact this failed shows that the 80s and 90s weren’t as great as Netflix wants us to believe

Without Dapper History, I would have never know that was supposed to be Charles Manson.

At first I was really scared of the makeup, but it grew on me.

Holy shit that makeup is impressive

i feel like this would have worked really well in 2012

“Or should I say, ‘Cokespeople’?” I’m telling you, in another life, you were my daughter. 😁