The Return of the Earworm

Last Wednesday morning, I inexplicably woke up with an old, old, old Pepsi jingle running around in circles in my head. (Not that it was inexplicable that I woke up. In fact, it was quite understandable that I woke up...what with my alarm ringing and all.)

"Taste that beats the others cold...Pepsi pours it on."

After I had unsuccessfully exhausted all attempts at purging the nasty earworm from my consciousness, I started wondering, "Whatever happened to the Cola Wars?" Back in the 1980s, there was a series of commercials spewing forth from Pepsi and Coke that were basically attack-ads aimed at each other. There was some pretty funny stuff, including nursing home residents sucking on Cokes but being transformed into young, hip party-ers when someone delivers Pepsi to them instead. ("The choice of a NEW generation.")

But I realized that I hadn't seen anything even approaching a Cola War ad for a long time. To be more exact: a very long time.

But then I realized that I hadn't seen any cola TV commercial for a very long time.

But then I realized that I hadn't seen any television ads at all in a very long time.

And then I remembered..."Oh yeah...I don't watch TV much anymore." Most of my boob tube entertainment infiltrates my sphere of awareness via either DVD or www.hulu.com. (A moment of silence, please, for "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.")

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While doing the exhaustive research necessary to keep this post historically accurate, I found that the Cola Wars have been reignited. This was posted by the news service, Reuters, on January 22nd of this year:

Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. are reigniting the long-smoldering "cola wars" with new marketing, hoping to stem a 3-year U.S. sales decline of carbonated drinks.

Coke is launching a global marketing campaign this week for its iconic cola brand, weeks after Pepsi introduced new marketing and overhauled the logos of its soft drinks, including its flagship cola.

"I don't think we've seen this kind of head-to-head competition from the cola giants for probably a decade or so," said John Sicher, publisher of industry newsletter Beverage Digest. "In my view, the cola wars are back on in a very intense and dramatic way."

Yeah...so intense and dramatic that none of us was aware it was happening. But then again, I've already established that even though my best friends while growing up were Captain Kangaroo and Gilligan, my television awareness in the recent past is comparable to my skill with power tools. ("Back away from the reciprocal saw, Dewey.")

But then I realized that this isn't necessarily a bad thing.