I made sure I had $1.75CAD in change tonight when I came to work because I know that is how much a 561ml pop costs from the vending machine. So you can be sure I was pretty pissed off when I get to the pop machine to find the price has been raised to $1.85. Hmm… why is it that every year the price of a bottle of pop goes up if its still “the same great taste”? Its because my hard earned money is going to pay freakin Beonce $20 million to hold a Pepsi between her bootylicious ass cheeks in a 30 second waste of everyone’s life. I wish we could get Royal Crown cola in Canada cause if we could I’d drink it, then piss in the can and make those pop suits take my Pepsi challenge.

Seriously, this war between Coke and Pepsi is costing us all money, that’s all it comes down to. If they seriously want to sway the 50/50 split of drinkers, take those billions of dollars spent on crappy advertising that nobody falls for and put it back into the product to make it cheaper. If I went down to the pop machine right now and found Pepsi at $1.85 and coke at $1.50, you had better believe I’d be getting Coke. The difference in taste isnt enough for me to spend an almost an extra 25% of the lowest price. I know what some of you are thinking now, if one lowers its price, the other will be forced to as well to regain the lost sales, and then when they both go as low as they can we will start the whole bullshit loop over again. I know, it would never work but still it makes me want to punch myself in the face though.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Accept for…. then as I feel that way, there’s a whole crapload of psycho drinkers out there who are loyal to their brand. Everybody knows about the cola holy wars. Each side has their god (aka, Pepsi or Coke) and they are willing to fight to the grave for it. Oh yes, and there are the nasty comments that each side gets to use, like “Pepsi is too sweet” or “Coke takes the rust off of nails”. Do these biases really have anything to do with the taste of the Cola though? I have three theories:

a) Yes.
b) No.
c) No with a but: I think many people choose the Cola they were introduced to first.

Let me elaborate. I prefer the taste of Pepsi, this is because it was the Cola my parents drank and I probably didn’t taste Coke until I had been drinking Pepsi for several years. Its like when you are a kid, if you are used to eating the Frosted Flakes with Tony the Tiger on the box and then your mom buys the cheap kind (because she’s back off the wagon and blew all her money on the drink). You hate the cheap kind, it doesn’t taste bad, it just tastes different, and it doesn’t have your buddy Tony on the box. My point is, if you are used to cola tasting a specific way and then you have it and it’s different, you’ll wish you had your old cola back. I bet if all of a sudden they put an extra spoon of sugar in each can of Pepsi, Pepsi drinkers would wish it wasn’t so sweet. It all comes down to what you are accustomed to.

Ok, so what have we learned here today? Yeah, I don’t know either.

Here’s a good read on cola psychos and the state of the cola wars.
Brandaq: The End of Marketing

Despite the crusty plastic Coca-Cola sign hanging over the doorjamb and the red-and-white logo emblazoned on the crusty window and the Coke-branded fountain on the countertop, Alex, with a healthy amount of suspicion, demanded a Pepsi. The waitress nodded and smiled and then returned with a plastic cup.

“Is this Pepsi?” Alex asked defiantly.

The waitress nodded.

I should like to recall for you the look on Alex’s face and the waitress’s and his father’s, but all I truly recall is how he took the plastic cup to his lips, swirled the drink quickly in his mouth, and then leaned over to his side and spit the cola on to the dirty wood-slat floor. “Coke!” he shrieked.

Somewhere a Pepsi brand manager earned his wings. Well, perhaps not. Alex’s bias was, after all, more toward an employer than a product.

Check out the whole cola story over here.