Battle of the Prebiotic Sodas

The battle of sodas just got a whole lot more interesting! We’ve seen Coca-Cola and Pepsi battling it out in the Cola Wars and now something similar is fizzing up in the new healthy soda market. Join Mark and Lorraine as they pop into the world of prebiotic sodas and discuss brands like Olipop, Poppi, and the newest player in the game, Coca-Cola’s Simply Pop.  

Join Mark and Lorraine for 30-ish as they discuss all things marketing, advertising, and of course … positioning!

Transcript

Mark Vandegrift 
Welcome to the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me today is our positioning pro, Lorraine Kessler. Thing one, we are going to put a nail in the coffin of Super Bowl 59 with one last discussion. And as we promised our listeners, we said we'd do a recall experiment and we had some surprising results. Honestly, I thought they were very surprising. So let's go through what we learned. So the first part is what we did was we said, name the brand that featured the following celebrity or celebrities in the commercial. So that was the first part of it. And the second was a concept. So the first one we asked was which commercial featured Post Malone, Peyton Manning and Shane Gillis. And do you remember that one?

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, it was the Bud Light Party kind of thing right.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yep. so out of nine people surveyed, seven of them recalled the commercial, which I was pretty surprised about. And the brand, I mean. 

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, they associated it. They made that connection.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, only two people. Now this next one didn't go as well.

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, I want to say something about that. I'm surprised too. I remembered it because I thought I paid attention to it because it was such a great way of distancing from Dylan Mulvaney and that tragedy from a year ago. But I didn't really know that other people would pay attention to it because it was very complicated. There was so much going on. I am, yeah, so I am surprised about the amount of association.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, and it didn't go anywhere.

Yep. Okay, here's the next one. See if you can recall it. Harrison Ford.

Lorraine Kessler 
Jeep, yeah.


Mark Vandegrift 
Yep. Very good. And that one, think that the line that did that was, I love the Jeep, even though my name is Ford or something like that. But surprisingly, that was almost like a 50 % recall. We had five that recalled it and four that did not. So that wasn't as good. I think part of it was the I didn't care for the execution of the commercial. He could have almost made the commercial a 15 second spot and not have all of his long discussion about freedom and all this other thing. And I think it would have had the same amount or maybe even higher recall because that line alone was enough to really go, that's like the icy hot. It's the two contrarian things being put together.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, I agree with you. think that's a good analysis. I actually only caught the part where he says, you know, I'm a Ford, but I love Jeep kind of thing. So whatever else was going on, I kind of tuned out. I think you're right about that.

Mark Vandegrift 
Okay, this next one was the worst recall of all of them. Well, I think it, no, there is one worse, but this one's pretty bad. Only two people recalled what it was. And that's Chris Pratt and Chris Hemsworth. Do you remember which one that was? 

Lorraine Kessler 
No.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. Do you remember what the product was? 

Lorraine Kessler 
No.

Mark Vandegrift 
It was for meta glasses of all things. 

Lorraine Kessler 
What's a metaglass?

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, do you remember the Google glasses? Remember our friend John Zito, had Google glasses way back in the day. You put them on and you could see like it would, the idea was down the road. You'd be able to look at someone. would tell you who they are. And so.

Lorraine Kessler 
No! No, I don't remember that. I think that goes into my selective memory.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, the recall on this one was horrible. This next one I know you'll get because you really liked it and that was Matthew McConaughey.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, Uber eats. I almost can't think of the brand without thinking of him and that whole commercial I think that to me was out of the park execution with kudos to the creative and the casting on those spots.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, OK, this last one was the worst one. And I don't even know if people remember that this commercial was in the Super Bowl. Glenn Powell.

Lorraine Kessler 
I have no idea who Glenn Powell is. I had to Google him and here's the unfortunate thing. He has a very undistinctive face. Right? mean, Harrison Ford has a crooked nose and I mean, there's like, I'm looking at this guy's face and I'm like, he just looks like a thousand men I've seen in my lifetime. He's like the generic man of all time.

Mark Vandegrift 
With long hair, right? Yeah. Well, for our listeners, the brand was Ram Trucks and that had a paltry one recall on that one out of nine. So, okay. And I know this next one you'll remember because we discussed it and I told you it was one of my favorite, but the recall was bad and you kind of predicted it, but we'll see. Willem Dafoe and Catherine O'Hara.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah. Yeah, that was the ultra, Michelob's ultra. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, Michelob. So everyone knew it was a pickleball ad, but they had trouble remembering the brand, which kind of surprised me because it was so front and center. Like think of all the brands where you saw the whole commercial and then they said, there's the logo at the end. You didn't know who it was the whole time. And then there's a logo. This one was like we're playing for Ultra and they're showing the beer. And so I was a little surprised that the recall was only four people out of nine got that.

Lorraine Kessler 
I just, I'm thinking, and it certainly wasn't the execution, it wasn't the casting because they did repeat the name over and over. I mean, I guess they could have had shirts that said the Ultra Team, Pickleball. I mean, I don't know, but I'm just thinking it's because the name of the beer is so bad.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, that could be.

Lorraine Kessler 
I think the name is just so generic, you know, that it just kind of goes in and goes, it's so soft.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah. Well, when people, when you say Michelob, the moment you start saying Michelob light comes out next. And here's the ultra side of it that I don't know. So, okay. The next part of the recall study was we named the brand for each of the descriptions. Okay. So I think you'll get this first one because you thought it might become something akin to hump day that Geico had done. this is Slow Mondays. 
Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, slow Monday.

Mark Vandegrift 
see, you named it even before. 

Lorraine Kessler
But I don't remember the product. I don't. I just remember the slow movement.

Mark Vandegrift 
You don't. Monday Light, remember Monday Light?

Lorraine Kessler
I don't know, it a beer, right? Okay. All right, well, no, I don't remember Coors Light, so I...

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, Monday light or Coors light.

Lorraine Kessler
All right, well, no, I don't remember Coors Light, so I...


Mark Vandegrift
Okay, so you're like most people. We only had two recall this out of nine. Yeah, so this next one, what's that?

Lorraine Kessler 
my God. And, you know, I am of a certain age where this kind of failure is expected. Yeah.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, but we study them. you know, even remembering last year's because it's so ingrained in my head, I've seen them 100 times. They kind of stick around, but I can't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning. Okay, the next one is a little girl who becomes a farmer.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, the potatoes. So that would be Lays. Okay.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yep. Now this one was only about 50-50. We had five get the recall out of nine. So a little bit better than 50%.

Lorraine Kessler 
You know, as I think about that spot, think about it and go back in your own mind. The whole vibe of that spot, kind of this wholesome country thing, and there's a sweet story and this, it's very Budweiser. It's very Clydesdale. I think it'd be easy to confuse that.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, yeah, I could see that. But I mean, the object of the whole thing is a potato. And it starts out with the potato farmer and it ends with the potato farmer and has a big, you know, the big Lay's logo on the side of it. So I don't know.

Lorraine Kessler 
You know what I think would be a really funny ad for Lay's? Is to have like a Mr. Potato Head or a Mrs. Potato Head or any other version who tries to make it into a Lay's bag of chips. Wouldn't that be fun? Yeah, they keep getting kicked out.

Mark Vandegrift 
I guess? As long as it doesn't go into the dark realm that

Lorraine Kessler 
No, no, no, no, have to keep it in the realm of the M&M chocolate candies. You have to keep it like that and they become kind of the identifier for Lays. Anyway, someone, there's a free idea for some agency.


Mark Vandegrift 
That would be good. Yeah, well the next one is four crazy old ladies driving wildly around town.

Lorraine Kessler
Oh my God, I kind of remember this.

I'm not coming up.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, you're with everyone else. Only one got this and it was WeatherTech. If you remember at the end of the commercial, they go over like a big bump in the road and the car flies and the tea comes out of the lady's hand and lands in the WeatherTech floor mat. And that's the extent that WeatherTech's brand is really in that whole thing. And I thought it was a challenge because it was so different than the personality that WeatherTech has typically gone with.

And I saw a subsequent commercial just this week on WeatherTech. I was a little surprised. I can't remember what it was right now, but I do remember it going a step further than their their typical, just what I would call boring, straight advertising, right? Just highlighting the product. It had a little personality to it, but it felt like they were coming back to Earth a little bit from that craziness of those old ladies.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, I mean, this is like, I guess you have to applaud the experiment, but they're at a size and a success ratio and they're so differentiated. I know they now have a lot of other products that maybe they can afford a failure like this, but it's a functional product and I'm not sure making fun of it necessarily is the best way to dramatize it. I don't know. I I think they can stretch from the pure rational kind of way they were advertising in their introductory phase and growth phase. Now they're approaching a maturity phase and they certainly need to create interest somehow. So hey, I guess they have to experiment.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, we just bought a used car. It's a 2021 model. And I was surprised to see that it came with WeatherTech-like car pads or floor pads. And they were Toyota's version of WeatherTech. So they weren't WeatherTech, but they were manufactured by Toyota and they have the same coverage and everything. They're fitted, they're laser fitted, all that. So it'd be interesting to see if the OEMs bother with that anymore. If most people in new cars are getting weather tech like floor mats.

Lorraine Kessler 
Right. Well, my guess is that Toyota did not manufacture those. They may have contracted those through WeatherTech.

Mark Vandegrift 
It could be, I asked the salesman, said, these weather tech? And he goes, no, Toyota makes them. But like you say, they could be just private label type thing. Yeah.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, it could be a cloaked or private label kind of situation. If I were WeatherTech, I would definitely want to lock down OEMs.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, yep. Well, these next two each had recall of five out of nine. Do you remember the volcano lava?

Lorraine Kessler 
You know, I didn't, I missed that commercial totally. I don't know what I was doing, so.

Mark Vandegrift 
That was the Reese's lava, the chocolate lava Reese's. And then I was shocked that this one had five out of nine recall, a dancing tongue. Do you remember that one? That one was awful. There was only one, well, I would say there were two commercials worse than the Dancing Dung. This one was for Coffee Mate. And of course, the worst one was that cowboy fleshy head thing. That was disgusting. And then the last one that I'll list here, tell me if you remember it, Donkey and throwing computers through windows. 

Lorraine Kessler 
No

Mark Vandegrift 
That was Squarespace. Yeah, it was odd and recalling that was only three out of nine.

Lorraine Kessler 
You know, we're going way back to like the GoDaddy days, right? Remember those crazy commercials and no one knew what a GoDaddy was? And by the way, I had a really bad week with them.

Mark Vandegrift 
All I remember is Danica Patrick and GoDaddy and how many people were up in arms about the whole thing being so sexy and all you're doing is selling domains. What's all this sex selling? But I always associate Danica Patrick with GoDaddy because of that. So who knows?

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, that's funny. Well, I associate them this week with not very much on the ball because they had a major switch over to Microsoft 365 and everybody's emails disappeared. And it's been four days. I finally figured out a workaround without their help and was able to get, it's on John's account. It's crazy. And they kept saying, we think it's on our end. It's a system problem. But then their chat kept giving me all these things to do. It was crazy.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, let's get onto the topic at hand. We're already halfway through our episode here. We're going to pop into the world of prebiotic sodas. And you might recall that I personally love Poppi and other people drink Olipop and they've become the two prominent brands in the healthy soda market. And when they hit the shelves, Poppi in 2020, Olipop in 2018,they created that new healthy soda market. So Lorraine, we've talked about Poppi before as one of our examples of designing a new category episode. But what do you want to share or how do you want us to frame this new healthy soda category that has grown to be so successful?

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, I think it's an obvious idea, right? Anybody who hears about it is something everybody has wanted, soda without guilt, and soda that's healthy with none of the bad stuff. So it's a great freaking idea. And whenever you think of something that you, whenever I think of something that's like, I wish I thought of that, it's because it's obvious. So that's right away when you have an obvious differentiation that the market is ready for the minute they hear it. You've got a great position. But I am less impressed with the product than maybe you are. And I only tried one flavor, so I'll give you the whole experience. I happen, the ads that they've done are so effective that it created trial. And that's what you want an ad to do. So I happen to be at one of our clients. Bam, right? Healthy cuisine. And I was picking up to go and I saw on the shelf, I didn't need any beverage. And I saw on the shelf Poppi and I thought, I'm gonna buy that. And I looked at the flavors, lemon, lime, and some other weird ones, fruity ones. And I thought, this one says it's a cola flavor. So I'm thinking it's gonna be like Coke or Pepsi. That would be a home run. So like I said, on the good side, this created trial. saw it. I remember the commercial. was like, got it. Why not buy it? was in the right environment, a cuisine that's healthier. But it didn't taste at all like a cola. It had a weird to me unappealing taste. Now I should probably try some of the other non-cola more fruity type ones to give a product review. But, It made me think of Bill Birnbach who said, great advertising will make a bad product fail faster. And like I said, it's unfair to judge the whole line based on this cola, but it doesn't taste anything like Coke or Pepsi and what I expected. So that was bad. But here's the thing I think that's really interesting about this, that I am super surprised that Coca-Cola's trademark attorneys haven't jumped all over this. The can is the color of Coke. It's red. It's a version of red and white, and the icon, the motif they're using is absolutely an iterative motif of the Coca-Cola bottle cap. So I think that it's so bad that when I brought it home and I sat him on the counter, my husband thought it was Coke. And when he tasted it, he was just like, what is this? So I'm just really surprised because these trademark attorneys love to be aggressive. This is one I Like I wouldn't let this one go.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, my recommendation to you is try Doc Pop. It's Dr. Pepper's flavor, right? It's called Doc Pop. It's in a purplish can and that's the only one I drink. I have tried some of the other flavors and I'm with you. I can take it or leave it. There's a couple that I've liked, a couple that I haven't, but I mean, we all like certain flavors and Doc Pop was the one that I liked just in case you're a Dr. Pepper fan. My daughter's like Dr. Pepper and Doc Pop, so there aren't more on the sweet side. well, as we know, the battle of sodas isn't anything new, and we've all watched how Coke and Pepsi have gone head to head as they battle for that number one spot. And as I just mentioned, Dr. Pepper then swooped in to claim the number two spot in front of Pepsi, just not over a year ago. So now we have this other category that's fizzing up and the top players, Olipop and Poppi, even though they've been in the game for years, are gonna be facing a new competitor from Coca-Cola called Simply Pop. So you may have heard this, but Coke had plans to buy Poppy, but those plans fell through due to the legal challenges that Poppy was facing and ultimately led Coke to enter the market with their own product. So I don't know if you've heard about this, Simply Pop or not. It sounds kind of close to like popcorn. I'm not even sure how we're going to delineate all that stuff. But it looks like Simply Pop is going to position itself as the prebiotic soda made with real fruit juice, with the headline in their announcement being Simply brings a juicy pop to booming prebiotic soda category and stating that Simply Pop includes no added sugar and 25 to 30 % real fruit juice from concentrate. And this is a first for that fast growing segment. So explain the idea that if you're not number one and you're not number two, so Poppi and Olipop, then you have to be something new. Do you think Simply Pop is going at this with something new.

Lorraine Kessler 
Not new enough. And I would also say I would question whether Poppi and Olipop are number one and number two. I don't know what their market share is. I don't know what command of the category they have. You could be number one and have 10 buyers. I mean I don't know the size of the market that they've established so far. So I think one of the problems too is that well, first of all, Coca-Cola, name's a bad name, right? I mean, it's just a bad name. And Simply Pop is just, it's just weak. It's not as good as Popi or Olipop. So, but they're starting with that little disadvantage. But as we talk often, it's not about who's to the market with an idea. It's about first to mind. And so I'd want to know who is first to mind? if you said, hey, who is the leader in prebiotic Sodas? What name would come to mind? I'd really be interested to see how dominant this whole category is. I think it's still growing. And then Coke on the upside has a lot of advantages to leverage. It has massive worldwide distribution. And you know, when we talk about A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin's book, Playing To Win. Part of playing the wind is differentiation, but part of it is also where do you apply? Where do you have advantage? And this is all advantage goes to Coke here. And when you consider that 75 % of brand decisions are made at the shelf, they definitely have a dominant position. Why? Well, they can push themselves into all their existing distribution easily. They can get shelf facings easily. Poppi and Olipop are still in the process of trying to sell and earn that. So, and if you're a grocer, you might decide, I only have room for one of these, right? Maybe two. So who are you going to put in? You're definitely going to put in Coke. And then you're going to, why? The other reason is that people don't realize that so much of grocery is pay to play Right? You have slotting fees. So anybody listening out there may not know this, but you have to pay to get your product into systems. And the bigger the system, the more the pay. And so Coke could just win simply because of its war chest too. So I think it's going to be interesting if I were Poppi, I certainly in terms of Poppi, and I think that name is better than Olipop, my personal opinion, but I would stay kind of true to their knitting and maybe be more specialty, like being more like the health food restaurant I was talking about, or at Earthfare or smaller markets and distribution where who want to sell more boutique type products that give them a difference from the main line grocery stores, right? That always have something new and unique to sell. I think you can win big. There's plenty of those stores all across this country. so I might narrow the focus rather than being number one. So that would be a flanker or guerrilla strategy. It's more guerrilla in terms of you narrow the field of play where you have advantage. Coke in a specialty market isn't special. I can buy it anywhere. So ubiquity works against them but Poppi in a specialty store, specialty market, that they're new, they're unique, they own the category, they own the idea.

Mark Vandegrift 
Well, you mentioned Guerilla. Poppi did a really stupid thing, at least according to the social verse, right? Not only did they have the legal issues that kept Coke from buying them, but if you haven't heard, right before the Super Bowl, Poppi sent 32 vending machines to different influencers and had the influencers post videos using the vending machines on TikTok. But it backfired because it rubbed viewers the wrong way. Many people were upset over the fact that 32 influencers were gifted really, really expensive vending machines for free rather than gifting them to places where like students or athletes or teachers or nurses could benefit. And then to add fuel to that fire, Olipop commented on a few posts saying also for the record, those machines cost $25,000 each, LOL. and 32 machines times 25,000 per machine. Yikes. So.

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, so much for transparency.

Mark Vandegrift 
There's this whole thing about going after influencers and if you just get an influencer, but the thing you don't control is what that influencer says. If they're truly independent, right? You're giving them something to review. You've just spent 25,000 plus all the product that you have to fill that with and people are upset about this. So what do you think about this campaign and what it did?

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, transparency may be the new black, but it can hurt you. It can bite you in the back end. I guess I'm a little surprised by the reaction because like, and maybe just because we're in the business, we're not as naive. These influencers are paid. They're paid with product and all. There is no, I don't really believe there's many influencers unless that's their business of independent review who aren't paid for and and so I guess that's a new awakening for the public to be like, wow, this is so wrong. I don't see anything wrong with it. I actually think it's kind of a firestorm over nothing. the thing that really that surprises me even more is why vending machines? That's like that I would never think of vending machines in conjunction with this product. Every product I think of in a vending machine is kind of degrades the brand. It's kind of a devolute, it devolves the brand. I'm like, why would vending machines want to even be associated with this product? I don't get that.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, highly processed. Well, it's probably the novelty of like having an original pinball machine in your place. Maybe they thought this would be something they felt was cool. But man, if a vending machine showed up my house, would stay out in the garage because we don't have any room to put it anywhere. So I don't know. Well, let's jump over to the other side of the competition, the number two, which is Olipop. And I don't know if you know the history, but they came out first as we always say, it's first to mind and Poppi did that in front of Olipop. And part of the problem with Olipop was their design of their can. This was one something where, you know, we'll have Lindsey throw it up on the screen, but the old can that they had, their design did not sell well. And the moment they did a refresh, a brand redesign on their cans, they started flying off the shelf. So it's interesting. Here's what they called it though. You ready for what they called olipop on the old can? Sparkling digestive tonic. That sounds alluring. Mmm, yummy.

Lorraine Kessler 
Well, you know, we always say that the category should be framed in very generic terms like lead-free gas, right, or high-performance turf, right, pretty generic, but you also should have a benefit in it. what did you say? It's sparkling digestive tonic, you know that's like the worst category name ever because, you know, we've said this before, people think categories before brands, right? So what do you want people to think about this category? Not that it tastes great or that it's for everyday drinking, but it's only for those people who have digestive problems, right? So it's some sort of medicinal product that's trying to fix a problem, a disease, right? So that's not very attractive. I think the emphasis is on the wrong salabas. And the thing is, as I think about this name, I know it's finally caught me. Lollipop, Olipop. So there's kind of a misconnection, because if it's like Olipop, you're thinking more candy. Now you're telling me it's a health product, and it's a little bit confusing, I think, to say the least. But digestive tonic? You know what, is an example of where research could help.

Mark Vandegrift 
absolutely. Well, and common sense too. mean, tonic, like what younger person even knows tonic and older people like us still remember the stories of people selling snake oil on the side of the road. And it was always called tonic. In fact, think Coke and Dr. Pepper started out as tonics, but that was late 1800s.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, elixirs. Actually, they were they were elixirs yeah. 

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, I mean, we look at developing a category. One of the ones that was cool the other day I was watching, it's called Fixer to Fabulous. It's Jenny and Dave Mars, I think on Discovery. And they actually opened a box and Dave Mars goes, this is insulated siding. And I'm like, we invented that category.

Lorraine Kessler
Oh my gosh. We're not paid enough Mark. We're not paid enough.

Mark Vandegrift
You're talking to the person that came up with this. I know, and this is like 20 years later. you know, it makes us feel great about it. So share a little bit about category development because you are the one that led all of that for Progressive foam.

Lorraine Kessler 
Sure, and it's interesting because it's very similar to the Olipop kind of thing, right? Because the first thing you want to ask is, when you have a new category and you think you have the opportunity for a new category, it's like, what do we call this thing? Because as we said, people think categories first, brands later. So you can think of a category as a ladder that you carry in, and then the brands are kind of hooked on each rung in the order that they satisfy that category. So it's a really great play. I always look at this as the first positioning move before I look at any others, owning an attribute, preference. I always say, can we create a new category? Is there enough of a difference here that this is so new that we can set out a sandbox that we control? So with insulated siding, what happened is a client of ours created, innovated a solid EPS foam backing that was contoured to all different contours of hollow vinyl siding. And hollow is really important because people know when you put hollow siding, vinyl siding on your house, hey, it could get hit by a rock and it cracks and dents and what, and there's no insulation value. So it's a very flimsy kind of veneer. And here all a sudden they have this where they can put this backer on and they were really focused on the strength durability. Calling it like solid core and solid this and solid that. Well, when you think about it, wood is solid. There's fiber cement is solid. That's a competitive product. There's some other composites that are solid. So that really isn't much of a differentiator other than it makes it a premium vinyl. But moreover, the other benefit was, you know, with this product, this EPS foam, you have an insulation value. So we weren't sure which one to focus when naming the category, and we knew we wanted to name the category. we contracted both, or contracted, I didn't contract anything, but we reached out to a researcher and we did focus studies and we did quantitative in the right order. And what we found from that research was that the insulation value was a more immediate, understood benefit, a more differential benefit. No other siding, wood, metal, composite, is talking about insulation value. And so that's what led us to calling this insulated siding. So there's hollow vinyl siding right? And this is a trick of repositioning, is you expose a negative that anyone can verify is true. Anyone can verify is true that that vinyl siding without a backing is hollow. So we called it hollow vinyl siding, and the solution is insulated siding. And insulated siding gives you this great energy benefit. And as a secondary benefit, of course, it's durability and strength. And what research led the way of

Mark Vandegrift
Well, and that's the key to whatever the digestive tonic, didn't go through the process that we take clients through to figure out a category because that was about as bad as you could think of.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, they did it later, I think, because they didn't say something to me earlier about how they changed.

Mark Vandegrift 
Yeah, they changed. They went, you know, now we're in the healthy soda category and they even iterated previously to that in a way that didn't make sense. was people were calling it something that didn't deliver a benefit. I mean, why is healthy soda so hard to understand? And I don't know if somebody in the room thought, well, that doesn't sound sexy enough, but it's the obvious. And as we know, in search of the obvious was Jack Trout's final book. the obvious idea is usually the right one. So it'd be interesting to see how simply pop kind of falls into this category of healthy soda and where Poppi and Olipop fall into the equation. thing about simply pop going after the real juice. One of the things that we know about orange juice and cranberry juice, and they all say made from real juice, right? But the sugars in their juices are so high that I have a hard time believing that Simply Pop will truly fall into the healthy category.

Lorraine Kessler 
Yeah, the sugars, they're just, it's like a double-edged sword. You take cranberry juice for certain issues, and then the next thing you know, your sugar level's way out of whack, which is what happened to me. So I'm like, you know, and if you drink the stuff without sugar, it's just gaggy. You ever have cranberry juice with no sugar? It's like, my gosh. Yeah, so I really think research could help them. It would certainly answer the question, first off, what is this thing? Do we call it sparkling digestive tonic or do we call it something else? Right? And that would have answered that question for them. And then it would have helped prioritize the messaging a little bit better on the prebiotic benefits and how it's made.

Mark Vandegrift 
Good. Well, we're gonna wrap up today's episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. Thank you for joining us again, Lorraine, and thank you to our listeners for joining us, tuning in. And don't forget to like, subscribe, and tell your friends, and just subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Until next time, have an amazing day.