Latest / Ridiculous History / Pepsi Briefly Became the Sixth Largest Navy in the World

Transcript

Pepsi Briefly Became the Sixth Largest Navy in the World · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. We are coming to you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: live under some very special circumstances. Through the power of technology.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We are continuing Ridiculous History during a no full and
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: quarantine him. I'm ben, I recognize you on the screen, sir.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was holding that in, holding that in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: so hard. It's almost like with somebody yawns, you feel
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: compelled to yawn. And why is it that we go
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: when we take a sip of a refreshing drink. I'm
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Noll by the way, Yeah, yeah, you're Noel. Uh. That's
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a great question. I wonder if it's partially just because
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: of the advertising. Maybe it's kind of earworm dust to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: expect that every time we hear that iconic click of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a can, it's like a Pavlovian dog drool effect kind
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of something along those lines. Yeah, Or maybe it's even
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: like in the post smash Mouth era, every time you
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: hear somebody go some oh god wow. I just had
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: like a brain brain twitch when you did that. Uh.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I know you're absolutely you know, you're absolutely right. And
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I've got another one that I think is a little
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: less less, uh, ubiquitous. But it's a she s got
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: me wakes up in the morning. Um, but no, it's true, man,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: we are in quarantine. Super Producer Casey Pegraham is in
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: fact in his closet. I'm trapped in the closet. Guys,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: should I Should I be talking more in this direction? Probably? Yeah,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: that sounds a little bit. We're working live here. This
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: is all a grand experiment. You can talk in whichever
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: direction feels most natural to you. So when you say
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: you're trapped in the closet, not in an R Kelly
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: cancel has been completely canceled. No, I'm literally just trapped
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: in the closet in my apartment because this room has
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: the best acoustics for for what we're doing here. So
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and no one has trapped you there. You're in the No. No, no,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm here of my own volition. Um, everything's fine. Well,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's not. But you know, as as far as
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the world's burning down. But the closet is an oasis
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: of sanity in order. It's a sauna on the level
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of the shipping container at the office. Actually, it's kind
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of it's kind of a hot box in here. Super
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram is going methods we record in quarantine.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Uh so, like methane, here we go, so uh so
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: here we are. We have been so grateful for everyone,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: all of your fellow ridiculous historians listening. We know a
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: lot of people are in self isolation or maybe a quarantine,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and these are candidly uh very very uncertain times. But
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: the three of us wanted to keep this show going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: no matter what it took. And for the next several episodes,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: we don't know how long we might be coming to
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: you from our respective bunkers, which are just gonna get
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: weirder as we go. Right, Yeah, it's true. I mean
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I'm in my bedroom. Um. I have a little home
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: studio with all my synthesizer NERD toys surrounding me, um,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: which gives me some comfort at least if I if
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you hear me like making a little beat on the side,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: or hear a little deeple needle or kind of like
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: some bleeps and bloops, you'll know why. Um. But this
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: is our lives, you guys, and we're very very lucky.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I can't trust this enough to be uh in an
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: industry where we're able to keep working and keep putting
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: out these shows and hopefully giving you folks at home
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: some kind of comfort. It's some kind of company, you know.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Um uh. And and I I just want to say
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to all my friends and and our listeners that work
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in the service industry that are our retail that are
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: really getting hit hard by this, we see you, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: um we you know, just let us know if there's
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: anything that we can do, I don't know, other than
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: just kind of being there. Uh, and keep doing what
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: we're doing what we can do, but um, we we
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: see you, and uh it's the whole thing is just
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: kind of a mess. Um and I don't even That's
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: all I know how to say about them. Yeah, agreed.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: So to emphasize that point before we get started today, Uh,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: this show is and has always been, at least at
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: least for us, a community, you know, and the the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: show doesn't stop when the episodes over. So I please
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: please come share your stories with us Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: We love our page Ridiculous Historians. Uh, we're all. Even
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: if we can't be physically here for each other, uh,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: which we haven't been, if we're in podcasting, right, we
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: can be here mentally. Uh. And we can get through
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: this stuff together, especially because it's weird. You know, we're
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a history show and we're we're at an historic moment
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: in time. Today we wanted to introduce you I'm laughing
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: because this is such a weird segue. UH. Today we
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to introduce you to a particularly strange bit of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history that I don't know about. You know, this
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: was news to me when I was looking into it.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I I almost didn't believe it. I thought it was
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: an exaggeration. No, I mean I also like, I read
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the headline and what the ultimate like story was didn't
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: match what in my mind the headline represented. Um, the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: headline being the title today's episode, how Pepsi briefly became
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the sixth largest navy in the world. And you know,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: I don't actually know what I thought that it meant, um,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: But no, it turned out that it's uh, some very
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: clever bartering, um, some very clever kind of quid pro
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: quo between the the Russian government and the Pepsi Corporation.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And it's ultimately a story of UH coming out from
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: behind the Iron curtain and kind of trying to try
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: on some American products for size. Uh. In terms of
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Russia trying to like kind of join the rest of
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the world after the end of the Cold War, right, yeah, absolutely,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: and that's that's a great place for us to begin.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: So the Cold War in the nineteen fifties, you know
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that everybody knows kind of what the Cold War was.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Two hegemonic superpowers, the US and the USS are both
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: want to be the big dog on the planet, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: they both want to avoid an out and out direct confrontation,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: so they wage proxy wars. Uh, you know, unethical diplomacy, propaganda. Uh.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Different countries that are full of innocent bystandards are being
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: used as as battle grounds. And the crux of it
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: is that that that both both countries are armed, uh
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: nuclearly right right right, so they can't Nobody wants an
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: escalation because of mad mutually a short destruction the theory
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: that says, if one person or one state launches a
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: nuclear weapon, then it will become increasingly easier for other
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: states to rationalize launching them. So no one wants to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: tip the apple cart too far. It's kind of like
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: we we talked about this earlier, and in one way,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it's like if you're a kid and you were ever
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: trying to race one of your friends in school, but
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you couldn't run because the teacher would get angry at you,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: so you're kind of power walking. So they want right
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: or like around the pool. You know, you don't want
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: to be a kid that gets yelled up with a
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: life card for running and then your idiot friend is
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the one who wins up cracking his skull on the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: side of the shallow ends. So you know, he had
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a coming in this hypothetical scenario, right, which maybe not
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: a one to one comparison to New Clear War, but
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you see what we're getting at, folks. So at different times,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the US and the USS are would escalate things and
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: then they would try to ease things down. Uh. This story,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: uh sort of begins when the U S s R.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: In the U S we're in a period of easing tensions.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: They started this thing they called cultural exchanges. And this
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, let's learn more about people as people,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: learn more about the people of Russia as humans and
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the people of US as humans. So it came to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: pass in the summer of nineteen fifty nine, the Soviet
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Union held this kind of like I guess we call
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: it a mini world fare I was thinking the same thing.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Ben is very much like, but highlighting American products. Everyone
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: was there, from IBM to dixie Cup, Disney of course,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: you know, because at the end of the day, I
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: mean the folks on the ground in Russia. There was
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: always a desire for American culture from the actual you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: people that live in in the Soviet Union. We did
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: an episode on those Russian hipsters that were bootlegging Elvis
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Presley seventy eight on uh what was it x X
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: ray pronounced that they kind of dumpster dive from hospitals.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: There was always a strong desire for American culture. So
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: this is a big deal, right, all of a sudden, Hey,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: American culture is coming to Russia in the form of
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the American National Exhibition in Sokolniki Park in Moscow. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: like I said, we had IBM, we had Disney, we
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: had dixie Cup, we had all of these massive brands,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: and that included Pepsi. Yes, that included Pepsi. Also, the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union held a similar exhibition in New York
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: City and they did the same thing with Russian displays.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So this was very quid pro quel Clarisse on July
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: at the American National Exhibition there in Sokolniki. The Soviet
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Premier Khruschev visits this exposition and then he meets Richard Nixon,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: who at this time is just vice president. He had
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: been sent uh you know, as a stand in for
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Dwight Eisenhower, the president because you know, no spoilers, but
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: obviously the U. S. President wasn't going to travel there.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: So they look around. Kruchevan Nixon are walking around. They're
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: looking at this model home, the US American Dream model home,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and then they start talking smack to each other. You know.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I picture it as a very caddy thing about capitalism
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: versus communism, throwing a little shade. There were changing some
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: barbs and then uh and they did it on the
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: air too, right, Yeah, So it's pretty cool. As a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: as a technology nerd um, I can actually point out
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that the microphone they stand in front of in this
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: model kitchen um is this very specific r C a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: broadcast microphone that's a ribbon microphone, and it's very very sensitive.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So if you ever get your hands on a ribbon microphone,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: don't drop it, because you can actually literally render one
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: of these very uh dell get pieces of technology completely useless. Um.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they're standing in front of this microphone and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: what has since become known as was it the Kitchen Debates?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: And you you can get a gander at this yourself
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: on YouTube pretty easily. There's there's several versions of it
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: up right now. Um, and yeah it's true. I mean
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: they say things like here's a quote from from it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, Ben, and this is an opportunity we've
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we've been waiting for for so long, our an opportunity
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: to do and a Nixon off which sounds like a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Russian word, a Nixon off. So I'll start, if you
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: don't mind, let's see. Oh I haven't done this in
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: so long. Um, let's see. I'm a little horse too,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: so let me let me do my best here. Um,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you'll you'll, you'll plant on it. No, I can't do it,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and that's gone. I'm gonna let you do, all right.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. Let's see. Uh I
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: am not a crook. No, I can't do I remember
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that's I'm gonna make it a very lippy. Um, you'll
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: plan out trip hospital, taking all on the product, and
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it could continues that wasn't really free ext I'm sorry
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: coming yeah it was translation, yeah yeah yeah. Uh. So
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: he's saying, you planned out strip is particularly in the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: production and consumer goods. If this competition is to do
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: the best for both of our people's and for people everywhere,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: there must be a free exchange of ideas. And then uh,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Kruschev is arguing back and Nixon says, you know you'll
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: never country eat anything, which is um fair, yeah, true,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: but it's also weird coming from him from Nick no
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: big time. But this is also like Nixon when he
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: was still you know, sort of a human. Uh, he
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: was very young in this video, Like he really looks
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: like he's still had a few pieces of his soul remain, honestly,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Um and Krisschev, do you remember that episode we did
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: about what was the deal? Like he wanted to go
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to Disneyland, and like they wouldn't let him go because
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it was too much of a security risk. So I
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: think the fact that Disney was at this expo was
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: no accident. I think Karuschev was a big fan of Disney.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: It's interesting that Krischev would have espoused any kind of
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: interest in an Americans. It is fascinating and I like
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: that you point out that it was probably not a
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: coincidence that Disney was there because a lot of things
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that looked like happenstance were not actually happenstance. Here because
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: you see, we have tricked you into listening to another
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: con episode. It turns out that this entire kitchen debate, uh,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: and or a lot of the Nixon Kruschev meeting was
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: part of a plot on the side of American capitalism,
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: good old fashioned hucksterism, is how the article on the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Daily Coast calls it. The night before Nixon and Kruschev meet,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: one of the executives for Pepsi, guy named Donald M. Kendall,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: visits Nixon the U. S. Embassy in Moscow, and he's
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: known Nixon for a long time outside of business relationships.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Like they they hang out, you know what I mean,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: probably smokes cigars and drink brandies and and creepy back
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: rooms together. Yeah. That was that was the That was
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the style of the day. Uh. You see Kendall is
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: he's kind of like he wants to be like the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Alexander the Great or the Jengas Khan of PepsiCo. He
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: wants to grow the company overseas, and the rest of
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the Pepsi executive board is like, what are you doing,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: man time in a place. You're crazy. They're nuclear weapons.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know what the soda is worth it. But
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: he goes against them. He sponsors a booth at this exhibition,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and in that exhibition, the only thing they give you
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: is pepsi cola and uh, he gets a little bit
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of juice, a little bit of help from President Nixon,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and they try to This is weird. I think that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: stood out to all of us. This is weird. The
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: booth gives you two batches of pepsi. You can get
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: one that's made with water from the US, one one
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: name with water from Russia, and then slightly I'm sure
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they did something on purpose, right, Uh. And then the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: scoop is that when Kendall visits Nixon secretly, he says, look, uh,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: look tricky, which is probably what he called him. He's like, look, Tricky,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I uh, I gotta make this trip worthwhile. We're old friends.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: My jobs on the line. I need you to get
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a pepsi in Kruschev's hand. That was the whole point. Yeah, yeah,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Because there are photographers, uh, you know, with their with
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: their flashbulbs a flash and this is obviously a big
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: photo op type moment um. All of this stuff is
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: is about optics, as they say, and in politics, right, Um,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: And and here's the rub which I really really love.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: It was set up for Krushchev to you know, lose
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: his cool and be like, you know, the Russian version
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: is better, Russian water tastes better because you know, to
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: Krishev of Russia is going to be superior in every
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: single way, in the same way that he got into
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that uh you know, exchange of jabs with Nixon over
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: communism versus capitalism. Of course he's gonna say the Moscow
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: water is better. And essentially he he does take you know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and in doing this, in getting kind of honey trapped
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: into picking up this thing to do this Pepsi challenge,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: which is kind of what what was the Pepsi challenge
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: That's where you had to like do a blind taste test,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: right brand X and pepsi. So this is sort of
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a version of that. I wonder how this fits into
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that chronology of the Pepsi challenge. Is a little bit
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of an augmented Pepsi challenge. Um, but yeah, he definitely
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: gets the pepsi in his hand. I imagine there's some
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: branding on it, and they snap a picture, and he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: likes the stuff, right, he's a big fan. Yeah, well
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: he he like he said, he wastes no time getting
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: honey trapped and say, you know, well, obviously the pepsi
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: with Moscow water is better. I don't know why I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: fell into a little bit of a shnak sent there,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: but I walked it back just to taste. Now is
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: not the time for caricatures, uh say, your favorite Nixon impersonators.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So this photographer, like he said, he catches Kruschev, you know,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: taking that initial sip, and then Kendall is on the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: other side and he pours another cup. Instantly people went
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: crazy for this. I guess he liked it because Kruschev's
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: son later says that the first thing Kruschev said, like
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: before he even drank the pepsi, he sniffed and he
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was like, this smells like shoe wax. But he drank it. Anyway.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: The press went crazy. This became like a like a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: predecessor of a meme, and there were these pictures of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Kruschev everywhere with a with a pepsi saying Kruschev wants
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to be sociable, and that was that that was actually
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: a reference to a pepsi marketing thing at the time,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: right right, which was is the slogan be sociable, have
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: a pepsi. Right, Uh, definitely not be socialists. Um, be sociable,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: have a pepsi. Uh. But that's the thing. Though, you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: know I said he went crazy for it. I may
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: have overstated the case a little bit. I don't think
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: this was necessarily about Khruschev falling in love with the
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: sacranny um kind of sickly sweet taste of pepsi. I
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: obviously have a horse in this race. I am a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: cokeman myself, as any red blooded at Lantin Georgian should be.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Coke is just far superior. I find pepsi to be
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I find it to be cloying, lee sweet and uh
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: and just not pleasant to drink. That's just my two cents,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: my hot take off. It's like, man, it is known,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: it is known, it is known. But at the time,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: when when? When when does this fall in in the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: history of coke? Because I feel like that, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: coke and pepsi were head to head for a while,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: So what do you think that that was part of
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: it where they wanted to really you know, get a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: foot in the door and have this big culture a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: moment to compete with coke. Well, they definitely, they definitely
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: wanted to expand overseas, and Pepsi and coke, you know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: both have their markets carved out even now, but they definitely,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: like anytime you're in that kind of business, you want
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to at the very least or ideally you want to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: be the first soda that people in the country have
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: ever seen, because you set the standard. Remember we did
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: that episode about Fanta how that was like the German
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: coke during World War Two, and that they used like
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: apple scraps and like things they had left over and whatever.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Marketing genius figured out how to do that. On the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: German side. He was like a hero, you know, because
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: he kept that going internationally and then it became like
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: a whole European explosion. So this was an example of
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: that on the Pepsi side. And like you said, I mean,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the optics of that photo op really set the world
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: on fire because it was sort of like everything's cool.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Kruschev and Nixon are kicking at sharing a ice cold
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Pepsi together. What could be more America combat, right, And
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: meanwhile the folks at coke Er, you know, gnashing their teeth,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, shaking their sticky soda fist at the sky. Uh. Kendall,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: by the way, he is riding high. He is a
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: hero in pepsi culture, of course, but he is also
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you know, he's becoming iconic in his own right in
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the United States. And I think it's only six years
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: after this American National Exhibition. He becomes CEO and he says, Okay,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna continue uh this growth. Now we
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Hey, guys, this just
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: sounds like a clever marketing kind of con thing. But
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: we were promised Navy, We're getting there. We're getting there
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: because you see, if we fast forward to nine two,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: we find that Tricky Dick Nixon is President of the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: United States and his old pal Kendall is serving as
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: CEO of Pepsi Cola, and their plans overlap once again.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: What was Kendall's position when he made this genius marketing
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: move marketing he was he was in charge of their
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: marketing division, so this really catapulted him or at least
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: was the beginning of a very fortuitous career trajectory for
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: this guy. I imagine if he went from marketing to CEO.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's a natural progression. I don't really follow these
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: kinds of corporate things, but either way, he's at the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: top seat now right, like he fought his way to
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the top and now here he is. Nixon is now
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: also in the top seat both and they've been pals
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: for a minute as well. Yeah, and uh, there's this
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: you know again, it's the Cold War, Remember how how
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: he described it earlier. Their their escalations and de escalations.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: This is during a d escalation time or period, and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Nixon is saying, Okay, we want to ease the tensions.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We want to expand commerce with the USSR. Let's get
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: some Western brands in there. You know. Uh, this is
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: probably I don't know about the chronology, but some of
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the thinking around the time here is similar to, uh,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that old theory about McDonald's and war. You guys have
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: heard that one, right, Nope, it's it's a it's a
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: now discredited are now no longer true? Uh international relations
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: theory that said countries that both have McDonald's tend to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: go to war less often or not at all, And
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: for a long time it was kind of true. That
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: weird interesting, that is weird. Um, it's funny to have
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: just really quick to believe a backtrack to the Cold War.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I guess one thing that makes a Cold War cold
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: war is like nobody declares war. It's really not even
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a war like on paper, right, So there's no like
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: formal end to it. It's just a series of escalation
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and de escalation. So this is just kind of like
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: them dipping their toe back early when they have that
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: expo that was probably the biggest example of them, let's
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: dip our toe into like pal up and trying to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like put all this nasty business behind us. So cut
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to thirteen years ish later, and Russia really wants to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: exclusively bring pepsi to it's it's sure's um and in
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: order to do that, they look to uh, Richard Nixon
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and our boy Kendall to to figure out how to
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: make that happen. Right, yeah, yeah, here's here's how it
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: goes down. So Kendall now is CEO and he is
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in sort of a highlander situation with Coca Cola. There
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: can be only one, right, and he thinks the USSR
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: is gonna be this huge market. And he he gets
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: with Nixon, who you know again is now president, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: he uses that nepotism that influenced to negotiate a deal
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: with Bresnev, who is the Soviet premier at the time,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and say, Okay, we're going to give you a ton
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: of pepsi. We're gonna help you start pepsi factories in Russia.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Give you the means of production, right. Communism loves that,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: which is the concentrate. By the way, it's just like
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: literally the secret ingredients. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly, so they're
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: still used in the Russian water super important. But the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: catch here is that pepsi would then get exclusive rights
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: within the U s s R, so no Coca cola
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: would be legal until at least they shipped, like you
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: were saying, to all that raw pepsi syrup to twenty
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: different bottling plants in Russia. That's where they carbonated, that's
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: where they put local water in it. And as the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: New York Times put it, this meant that pepsi was
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the first quote capitalistic product legally available in the USSR.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Man ben when you say that raw uncut, sweet and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: pepsi concentrate makes it sound really nefarious. Um, but yeah, no,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: it's true. Um. And here's the thing though, ben Uh,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the Russian currency, the ruble, didn't really the exchange rate
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't so good for that, So it was it was
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: not particularly feasible for the country to pay um with
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: their own currency. Uh. So what's the what's the country
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to do? What's the country in need of some sweet sweet,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: uncut pepsi? Goodness? To do you need some sweet sweet bartering? Right? Ultimately,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: because you're right. Not only was the ruble worthless outside
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of the USSR, but they didn't have a big secret
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: vault of American cash that they could use to pay pepsi.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So I don't know why, I'm thinking like robbing potato,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: robbing pepsi to pay potatoes. I don't know. We'll work
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: on it. But anyway, here's what would happen. Uh, Pepsi
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: was gonna barter their products that raw and cut to
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the Russians, and in exchange instead of US dollars, they
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: were going to get government produced vodka. What's that called?
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: What we call it slowly here? We call it slowly
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: for good reason. Because it's I've never been successful in
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: pronouncing the full name Casey pegram be being our resident
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: language of a file, I am now broadening your your
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: title to all languages. I want to give it a go.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: How about maybe yes, yes, Casey on the case, Casey
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: big time on the case. Yeah that Naia. That really
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: is the kind of melodious part of it that really
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: makes you want to get tanked. Yeah right, it's you
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: feel like you're drinking a song. Weird killing it with
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: these alcohol taglines. So so they're gonna get paid in vodka.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And then when they take possession of all this vodka,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the Pepsi company gets the exclusive right to sell slowly
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: in the States. What happens here is is interesting because, uh,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: the Soviet government begins creating Pepsi, and Pepsi begins selling
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: this vodka in the US, and in time it becomes
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the second largest vodka brand in the country in the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: United States. I mean, obviously this was a successful exchange
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: because Pepsi is still kicking. Ken Stoley is is one
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: of the Uh this is considered what is it a
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: midshelf vodka. It's not quite top shelf. It's not like
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a gray goose. People do like a Stoley on the rocks.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've seen fancy people order that at bars.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, I've seen somebody with like a monocle
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: or a mink stole order a stoly and that also
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: doubles as a sword. I have one of those. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: I do. Yeah, actually we could, we could see each other.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: I'll have to. I'll have to get it out next
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: time we record, please do. But the you know, Stoley
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: is definitely not that bottom shelf Mr. Boston kind of stuff.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, what pepsi was, Sully was real vodka,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: genuine vodka. But what the Soviet government was selling as
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: pepsi was not this same thing that we would consider
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: pepsi today. It was it was apparently perceived by people
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: as being a Soviet product. And yeah, and then people
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: in Russia and in the USSR at the time, all
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: kind of the conventional wisdom was Soviet products are terrible,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: so they thought it wasn't as good. They do still
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: have kind of a rap for that in those days.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Like there's some really interesting Soviet synthesizers. For example, um
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to to put put my synth nerd hat back on
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: but they are a lot of them considered a little
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: bit problematic and buggy kind of. But there are a
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: few very sought after Soviet products and they're considered a
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: little bit inexpensive and kind of cheaply made, but pretty cool.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing, dude, It's the same thing with automobiles.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Did a show a while back on cars behind the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Iron Kurt of course with Scott Benjamin on car stuff. Yep,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: that's true. And uh that that episode is still out
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and kicking somewhere if you want to learn more, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: then you can always dive into some sense the nursery
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: with my palkoll here. Uh, you've built us? Did you
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: build up? What did you build? Was about? I was
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: about to hold it up like the podcast listeners can
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: can can hear it, but you guys can see it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: right here. Yeah, it's this little mug uh d fam
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: drummer from another mother. I went to mog Fest a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: few years ago when this was a prototype and there
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: was a little class where you were able to like
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: build one and sought her all the points and it works.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I I did successfully sought her all the points. Good
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: job man, and uh, and so we we know that
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: there was this reputation, uh that for Soviet made products
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: that continues even in the modern day, even actually down
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: to some of their m R. E S. For anyone
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: who listened to our earlier episode with Jacqueline ropos So.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: And so there we go. They pulled off a coup.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: They have made this huge deal to sell vodka. They
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: being Pepsi and the of your government has made this
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: huge deal to legally have this capitalistic product. But again
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: you might be saying to yourself, Casey nol Ben, you
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: told me that there was gonna be a navy at
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: some point, and you keep saying that there is. But
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: now you guys are just talking about like vodka and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: weird photo ops. Well, here's the twist, ridiculous historians. You see,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Pepsi cuts a third deal with Russia, and this is
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: where I would say, maybe not the rubber hit the road, Uh,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: maybe the soda hits the straw. By the late nineteen eighties,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Russians are drinking about a billion servings of pepsi per year.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: What's a serving is that is is one can of serving?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Are they single serving? There like two servings in it can?
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I don't uh, you know, for right now I'm looking
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: at I'm actually looking at my trustee can of Coca
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: cola here, no shade, I'm looking at a twelve floral
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: ounce or thirty five million leader floral ounce fluid. Yeah,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the floral No, keep it, keep it. I like the
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: idea of floral I like it too. It sounds very pleasant.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: Maybe the world would be a better place if we
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: just measure things and flower. I don't I'm not hippy
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: enough for that to work. But but yeah, so one
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: one twelve fluid ounce can or three million leaders is
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: one serving. So so so let's just assume that that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: holds true. Approximately a billion cans of pepsi a year.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Uh So, by nineteen eighty eight they'd reached peep peek pepsi,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: let's call it um and they started running commercials. This
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: is also in the years uh when Michael Jackson was
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: like really making a splash in the pepsi ads. And
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I think there was that one ad in the States
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: where he burned his hair quite badly. Um. But yeah,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: he was huge in Russia as well, and a lot
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: of these ads got were starring the King of pop himself. Um.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So the demand was just really, really really high, and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the bartering situation was fine because Stoly was doing well
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: in the US. Like we said, um, but here's the problem.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: That demand for the product pepsi on the Russian side
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: was higher than they had vodka to barter with. Let's
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: let's call it all the vodka in Russia, you know,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't buy them the amount of pepsi cola they they're
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: people needed to consume. And add to that, there was
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: a US boycott of Stoly as a response to the
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Soviet Afghan War, and and Pepsi needed something else because
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: people weren't buying vodka. The vodka agreement by this point
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: is set to expire in nineteen eighty nine, so just
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to just to recap their pepsi had exclusivity until nine,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: but they had vodka until nineteen eighty nine, and they
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: were they were worried because the Soviet Union over this time,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: it changed fundamentally. You know, Gorbachev is now the premier,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and he has these domestic reforms that are meant to
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: save the USSR and a bunch of restructuring, transparency, moves, arms,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: controlled deals, and he wants to give new capitalist consumer
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: goods to the economy to try to improve the standard
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of living, and PEPSI is like you said, man, they're
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: going gangbusters. They're selling uh three million rubles a year
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: worth of soda in the USSR. They want to expand,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: they want to have like twenty six new bottling plants.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: They think their sales are probably gonna top over the
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: equivalent of three billion dollars US. And then they were
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: also you know, they were brainstorming. They were like, hey,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you know what Moscow and St. Petersburg could use, maybe
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: some pizza huts. This is back when pizza huts were classy,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, where you could sit down
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in the restaurant. They have salabar and stuff, really nice
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: salad bar, really cool movie high ends. I remember getting
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Back to the Future sunglasses that you get you could
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: only get it pizza hut, you know with your order.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: It was like way cooler than a happy meal toy.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: It felt like a real item, like of like you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: cultural importance. Yeah, agreed. Do you guys remember the book
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: at program? Yes, I have a shirt from book It.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: That's my Pizza Hut association is just going there after
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: school and like getting the free pizza and reading books.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Holy crafty. You gotta wonder light who struck up that?
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: You'll talk about exclusivity, right, book It and pizza parties
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: in general. Pizza Hut kind of had the racket, ran
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the gamut on pizza parties for kids. There were no
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Domino's pizza parties. It was always the Hut. Yeah, Yeah,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Domino's was home pizza. Pizza Hut was social event. Pizza casey,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you mentioned book It. Uh. I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: want to shout out that program for anybody who is unfamiliar.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Book It was wasn't I think is because they're still
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: on Twitter and I actually communicate with them on Twitter.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Book It was this program for children here in the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: US for sure, maybe in other parts of the world,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: wherein you would have a set amount of books that
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: you would read and you would be rewarded with different levels. Right,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: you would get a button, you might get a T shirt.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: But the big thing was if you mind, if you
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: minded your p's and ques, you could get your own
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: pizza calling a tiny pizza a personal pan pizza, by
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the way, stroke of genius and by the way, one
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: serving size personal pan. It's for you. You can beat
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. One serving. Yeah, this isn't like it's
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: not one of those situations where you order fries and
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: someone snags one. It's true. Hang on, guys, I gotta
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: let my cat out. You might hear some mewing. Hang on,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: this this is just real. This is real life. We're
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: gonna leave this in. Yeah, I hear him. Yeah, well
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: that might be. I can't tell that's his cat or
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my cat was Okay, hang on, no, my cat's going
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: to They must have heard yours. What really, I've got
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: two cats, Yeah, one super chunk and then Dr Vankman,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: who is the louder one, So the scientist of the two, right, right,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: he's he's our Bill Murray. But if you guys hear him,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: just let me know and I'll I'll handle it. So,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: so here we go. They want to open a pizza hut.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: Pizza Hut is awesome, or pizza Hut was at least
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: awesome back in the day, pepsi exclusively if I'm not mistaken, right,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: wasn't that the thing? Well? There they have the same owner,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, exactly. Uh, and so things are going gangbusters.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: But there's a complication. There's another complication. The problem is
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: the Soviet ruble still worthless on the international currency market,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: and selling that vodka it no longer makes enough scratch
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to cover the amount of Pepsi that the company wants
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: to sell. So they go back to the drawing board,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: go back to the bartering table, and they say, look,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: the Soviet government is going to have to come up
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: with something else to pay us, with something other than
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: vodka that we can sell on the international market. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: it can't be money because the money doesn't work in
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world, and it can't be vodka
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: because of the boycott. But it has to be something.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: So they start thinking outside the pizza box. Yeah, they
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: sure do, uh, And in the spring of ninety nine
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: they come to an agreement. Pepsi becomes the proud owner
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: of seventeen UH Soviet submarines, three warships UM, including a
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: decommissioned frigate which I love, I love a frigate, a cruiser,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: and a destroyer UM. And the idea here was obviously,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: you know, very cute, and in the way this episode
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: was named, you know that that Pepsi had this big navy.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: They were not intending to take over the world with
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: their navy. They just needed something that they could liquidate, right,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: and their goal for this stuff was to sell it
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: as scrap. These were not new, These were outdated a
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: decommissioned military vessels. Correct, Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Uh. The
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: frigate was decommissioned, as you said. Even the stuff that
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: wasn't decommissioned was old and outdated. Pepsi also got some
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Soviet oil tankers and those they either least or they
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: sold out right, uh, in partnership with the company in Norway.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: And so technically, yes, they did have a navy for
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a second, but they had no no plans to wage
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: war on Coca Cola or something that we're going to
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: invade Atlanta, Georgia, which would have been interesting. But they
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: did meet their bottom line because now with the money
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: they make for scrapping this flotilla, they sold it in Sweden, right, Uh,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And the money they make from leasing or selling these
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: oil tankers lets them double the more than double actually
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the Pepsi bottling plants in the Soviet Union. And then,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of course, instantly, because people back then loved weird jokes
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: as much as we do now in people immediately started
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: joking about the coal awards on the high seas and uh,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: this guy Kendall, who was of course still in in
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: the mix. He is buddied up so deep with the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: presidential administration. He's like talking to Brent Snowcroft, who was
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: the National Security Advisor at the time, and he's like, Hey,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: we're disarmed in the Soviet Union faster than you are.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Very clever, very clever. Kendall was his name, Brent. He
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: seems like a Brent to me. Brent is the National
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Security Advisor. Okay, what was Kendall's first name? He still
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: seems that Donald's. I'm gonna call him don I'm gonna
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: call him Donnie, real clever Donnie. He's like a child
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: that walks in in the middle of a movie. That's
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: a that's a big Lebowskie reference to step as Himmy's
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: character Donnie. R I p Donnie unless he was actually
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: a figment of the dude's imagination. That is a theory
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: floating out out there in the in the internet atmosphere.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: But I personally believe Donnie was real. You know, I
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I've got opinions. They've got opinions, but okay, save them. Well,
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I I think there's I think that big Lebowski is
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: purposely written in this sort of um uber medicognitive way,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: so so that it's designed to have those theories that
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: can't really be disproven, but can't really be proven it's
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: fun to think about. I can see that. Yeah, I see.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I would describe what you're saying is like it's it's
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: almost hyper stylized to the point where you can't quite
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: you have to suspend disbelief the whole time. The whole
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: thing is almost feels like a farce, and it doesn't
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: feel very like cinema verity. It's very much like absurdist
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: and kind of all bets are off because you don't
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: really have a sense of like the timeline or you know,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: people's relationships exactly Like, it's all very kind of up
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: in the air. I see what you're saying, man, and
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I like it. Thanks man, uh and shout out to
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: an old friend of mine that I'm not gonna I'm
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: not gonna site by name who once uh told me
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: to get my life together and to regard the Big
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: Lebowski as quote a cautionary tale. Yeah, I remember, that's
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: pretty rough. Was it the dude? No, No, it's not
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: the dude as I'm sure the dude would be fine
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: with with the way we live our lives, right, he abides,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: We are making an exception today. In addition to to
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: our exceptional recording circumstances, today's tale is going into the
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, which no long time listeners. We rarely do.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: We only do it when it's important. We have one
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: rule on our show, which is that we we want
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: to consider history before the nineteen nineties. But this, this
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: tale takes us just a little past that. Well, I
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: thought our cut off was like ninety three because of
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: a part time Oh yeah, okay, so we're we're with him.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: We're worth the limits here where this is. Yeah, we're
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: on the border. Fine, yeah, okay, yeah, good call. So
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union collapses in and with that, the Pepsi
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: deal collapses, and they've gone from having this you know,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: decades long balancing act that that is very profitable for
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: them at times into this mad dash to try to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: get all of their stuff back before it is taken
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: away by the different governments pro that are popping up.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Uh So, the l A Times has this interesting article
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: where they talk about how pizza huts are you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: kind of turned into garbage or they're made much less
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: cool because of how their supply chains, like how the
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: how their supply chains get complicated by these redrawn borders
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: that start getting mozzarella from Lithuania and stuff like that.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: And they're partially those those ships that they had were
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: stranded in Ukraine, and now the country of Ukraine says
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: we want to cut We want a piece of the
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: pie if you want these ships. And this UH to
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: our boy Donnie Kendall, by the way, is retired, and
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: he is still sore about it. He says, oh my gosh,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: the USSR has gone out of business, because that's the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: way he thinks about things exactly. I can understand that.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And so like we said, I mean, PEPSI did have
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: this pretty sweetheart deal exclusive agreement with UH with with Russia. UM,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: but you know, like all good things, they must come
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to an end. And eventually, UM their biggest competition Coca Cola.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: And I believe I can speak for you as well,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Ben when I say the superior cola, UH came rushing
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: in and wanted to get a piece of that action
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: came rushing in. Yes, yes, that is I intended that
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: from the from from the moment ago. So yeah, it's
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: it's correct. They're aggressive and they are the new kid
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: on town. Uh, they don't have maybe some of the
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: association's uh cultural associations that Pepsi had, you know, accumulated
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: during its time in the USSR. And Pepsi tries a
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: bunch of different marketing campaigns. You know, they've always been
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: pretty um, pretty original with their marketing campaigns, sometimes for
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: better or for worse. But Coca Cola is very good
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: at marketing too. Right now, the world as it stands,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: if you go to Russia, it'll be easy to find
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Pepsi because Russia is still Pepsi's second biggest market outside
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of the US. However, Coca Cola, after just a few
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: years after you know, quote unquote entering the chat, entering
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the game, Coca Cola, uh, beats Pepsi out. And so
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: now even though Russia is Pepsi's second biggest market, coke
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: is the most popular soda in Russia, thank god, right. Uh.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: And in the famous Pepsi billboards over Pushkin Square were
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: actually torn down, leading the author of fantastic Atlas Obscura
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: article to conclude maybe Pepsi should have held onto that
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: destroyer after all, so they could have went like strong
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: arm their way back into the market place. I don't, yeah,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't get you know, studies show it's
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: it's pretty difficult to wage war on an idea. And
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: uh and I gotta say, man, coke is just great.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I I gotta say to ben Um. I think this
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: story ultimately has a happy ending because Pepsi's reign of
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: terror over the poor, hapless people of Russia who were
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: unaware of the superior product cocacola. Uh I had gone
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: on too long, my friend, and I'm glad to see
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: it finally come to an end. Well, you know, I
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: am very much ado as Thou wilt kind of person,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: and I know that there are a ton of people
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: who like Pepsi and that's great, you know, because that's
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: less Pepsi that I have to run into in the field.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And uh, I appreciate everybody taking the hit for me,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: and I already have enough friends, so it's fine. There
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: we go. I do want to say, I do want
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: to say one other thing though, just as a as
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: a wrap up about this is something I wanted to
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: check with you guys. Uh. We mentioned Pepsi's crazy marketing campaigns.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: Do you guys remember Pepsi points. There was this huge
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: commercial campaign, um, I think back in the late nineties
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: where Pepsi was. This was all over TV. They said,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Pepsi was like, save up your Pepsi points, look at
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: all this cool stuff you can get. And one of
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: their things that you could allegedly get was for seven
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: million Pepsi points. You could have of this commercial implied
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: an a V eight Harrier to jump jet. Do you
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: think they made they got that as a barner with
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: some other weird backroom dealing with another country I trying
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: to offload. Do you think they have like a secret
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: storehouse full of like decommissioned war equipment. Wouldn't that be cool?
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe secretly an army this whole time. This actually went
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: to court because a guy named John Leonard sued PepsiCo
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: and tried to enforce their offer to give him the jet.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: Long story short, he didn't actually get seven million Pepsi points.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: He read the fine print of the contest and he
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: sent a certified check for seven hundred thousand, eight dollars
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: and fifty cents. That would be the cash value of
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: those pepsi points and uh then he also paid a
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: ten dollar shipping in handling fee. They they ultimately, uh,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: they ultimately rejected his claims though, but he did go
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to court. He just didn't get the jet. So that
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: that I guess that concludes today's episode. Um, you know, Casey,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you have been sitting patient and taciturn while well my
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: co host and I are clearly being pretty pretty anti
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: pepsi and I wonder do you have a do you
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: have a can in this race? Do you have a
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: candy kick here? Oh? Yeah, I'm I'm completely in the
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: coke camp. So we are a thoroughly coke friendly podcast.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case of Coca Cola. You can even
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: buy it by the case. What is a case? So, like,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: what are the units? You got like a like twelve right,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: you get like the thing where it's like the there
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: it's two levels and they're stacked on top of each
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: other and it's kind of uh like a like a
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: rectanging sort of shape. Yeah, that's a case. That's a case. Okay,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: So what's the step about it? I guess that could
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: also be a case. I guess a brick maybe, Yeah,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: because that's twenty four. You can see that. That's twenty
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: four kids. You can see those at Costco and stuff.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: That's true. Okay, well, well we'll get to the bottom
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: of these uh these numbers eventually, but in the meantime,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: huge thanks to super producer Casey Pagraham. Thank god you'
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: a cokesman, because I didn't want to have to disown you. Um,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: so we're good. Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: our theme. Gabe Losier, hero of the day, who hipped
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: us to this incredible topic. We would never have known
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: about this if it wasn't for Gabe. Thank you Gabe. Um.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Despite Quarantine's aside, um, we will still have Gabe joining
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: us on this party eventually, um, hopefully sooner than later.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: What do you say, man, Yeah, absolutely, we are in
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: contact with Gabe, who is real. You can hear him
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: on Part Time Genius and we're excited to get him
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: on the show. Finally. Additionally, we'd like to thank Christopher
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: hasci Otis. We would like to thank Eve's Jeff Cote
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: I have saying we would like to let's just say it,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: thank you, Chris, thank you Eves. Oh. Speaking of Christopher
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Sciotas quick Plug you, and I appeared on one of
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Christopher's new food podcasts, Food Court with Richard Blaze, which
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I think you can find right now out there in
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: the in the podcast usphere where we debate the merits
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: of sausage versus bacon. Um. And it's a really fun show.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, and uh, you can hear you can
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: hear that episode. You can also hear some other folks
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: in our network. I believe that the host of our
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: sister podcast, Saver are are going to be weighing in.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Uh spoiler alert. I think their debate is cake versus pie,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: so please listen. We're surprised that these are intense debates. Uh.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Richard Blaze is an awesome host. It's really cool show.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: I actually hope to see it live one day, but
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: check it out now. It's available wherever you listen to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows. UM. Are very last note, you know,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: whether whatever you drink, whether it's uh soda slowly pepsi
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: or coke. Uh, we're very very glad that you tuned
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: to and we hope that you are weathering these strange times. Uh,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and we hope that you you know, we hope that
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: you reach out to us. Of course, as we always
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: say as a show, we are a community. You can
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: find us on all the places we named at the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: top of the show, but you can also find us
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: as people because to steal a line from Fox News,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: now more than ever, it's important to remember that we're
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: We're all human. Every every person, no matter where they are,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: is still a person. So you can find us, uh
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Noel and myself as individuals on the internet. Yeah, you
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: can find me on Instagram exclusively where I am storying
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the hell out of this quarantine experience just to keep
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: from going completely insane. Um at how now Noel Brown.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: And you can find me on Twitter at ben Bulan
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: hs W. You can also find me on Instagram at
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: ben Bolan Uh Noel. I will say that I will
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: say that I've been keeping an eye on your stories
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: because I got a little concerned when was actually there
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: was construction in front of this students driveway and it
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: was it was like you couldn't get out physically, right,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get out. Thankfully, there was a dude in
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: a hole in the street right at the foot of
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: my driveway, um that had been covered up with a
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: giant steel plate. Thankfully, I wanted to yell at the
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: contractors because you coul tell them they were They were
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: the two guys in Puffy Patagonia vs. There's a new
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: house being built across the street, but thankfully it was
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: wrapped and cleaned up by the end of the day.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: And hopefully those are the people who had to work
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: during that time, right kay uh speaking in the employees. Uh.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: In these strange and troubling times. Uh, let us know
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: what things are like in your neck of the global woods. Uh.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: And and stay tuned because we are we we figured
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: out this quarantine thing. Actually feel really close to you
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: guys right now, nor only Casey and you look great. Uh.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: We're figuring this out and we plan to keep making shows.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: So let us know the ridiculous stories that caught your eye.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: This We will absolutely see your next tax books. For
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.