The Dichotomous Marketing of Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc.
I have long loved Dr Pepper. If I'm at home, I drink either iced tea or Dr Pepper. If I'm anywhere else, I stick to the safely consistent DP (I'm particular about my tea). Since tea requires effort to make, even while at home I now usually just grab a can of that sweet non-cola nectar of life.
The company seems to be on a marketing spree. They've introduced new branding and a new selling point: 23 authentic flavors. Wow, that sure is a lot of flavors, and a lot of flavors must be good.
Meanwhile, 7UP has taken a decidedly different approach. They've reformulated their drink to have only five, 100% natural ingredients. Somewhat deceptively, one of those ingredients is "natural flavors," which presumably contains lemons, limes, and perhaps other unknown flavors. To me, the "natural flavors" ingredient listing comprises several ingredients, but I'll let it go. At any rate, the message is that less is more.
Maybe it's just me, but these messages strike me as somewhat contradictory. One says that more is better and the other says less is better. They're both soft drinks so it's not like I'm comparing apples to oranges.
And so here we have two soft drink brands pushing contradictory ideals of what is desirable. The part that makes this blogworthy is that they are both owned by the same company, Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., which has been a division of Cadbury Schweppes for the past decade. Surely I can't be the only person who sees this as strange.
Were I an intrepid reporter for the blogosphere, I might perhaps call the company to ask them about their marketing schemes. Or perhaps I could march up the Dr Pepper/Seven Up headquarters and demand a straight answer: is less more or is more more? Alas, that would require me to travel upwards of three minutes (by car; I'll start the "march" portion in the parking lot). Yes, I may live on the same street as the headquarters, but I'm lazy, and apparently they're on the third floor of the Cadbury Schweppes building.
And so the contradiction remains, plaguing the world with competing ideals of simplicity and complexity. To which should we strive? non scio