Now Available With Nothing.

Making trip number four to the 'soda fountain' tonight during the recently established Tuesday habit with mates at Mo's Southwestern Grill, I slowed my usual beeline to the Sprite 'tap' (is it called a tap?), and quickly surveyed the competing flavours. All the standards, but then I saw something that rang no bells with me — Mr. Pibb. I have been in the States for about 6 years, but this drink is a mystery to me. I asked around the table, and although it was agreed that this is a Dr. Pepper imitation, no-one was drinking it.

So I checked around the web tonight, and in following Googles main hit for "whats in pibb", I found only a paragraph,including the the intro: "After serving the Pibb-loving community since circa 1995, this site is being retired. If you've been a regular visitor, I'm sure you noticed that I wasn't doing a great job of keeping it up-to-date. For a long time, however, this was still the best Mr. Pibb site on the web."

Now what the hell possesses someone to build a website devoted to a soft drink*? And apparently there's a community! And more curious still, how much competition was there in the cut-throat Mr Pibb web site realm that forced this closure? Perhaps they wanted to retire on top, or perhaps some skullduggery by vicious new competing Pibb web sites convinced them, in da strongest of terms, that retirement was an option. Perhaps he woke up with a Mr. Pibb head in his bed?

It seems Mr. Pibb is not in his popular prime, at least not on the north east coast, as many of the links were dead. And one existing fan site even contained the author's plea:Mr. PiBB is the best soft drink i've ever tasted. I suggest you try it. If anyone knows where I can find this in South Jersey e-mail me."It seems it even escapes its hard core afficionados. But did I discover that it was indeed Coca-Cola's 1972 attempt to thwart the growing competition from Dr Pepper. Well, their second attempt. Initially, in true new generation corporate style, their first attempt was litigation, when they tried sueing the Dr Peppers manufacturers due to some dispute over Coke owning a trademark named "Peppo". In a rare burst of common sense for the judicial trademark system, the attempt failed. So instead they just ripped off the "name rhythm", and made a close copy. But would you settle for a Mister when you needed a Doctor?

Anyhow, the soda tap next to Sprite showed an interesting use of a small amount of space for marketing purposes. You have about 6 square inches in total to show your label and any catchy marketing you can squeeze in. And the Traditional Lemonade tap chose to use it's space to advertise everything it doesn't have:

"Contains 0% juice".

Now, without discussing the merits of having to put a % sign after the number 0, I couldn't work out if this was supposed to be a positive marketing line (for those desperately avoiding anything vaguely natural in their soda), or a health warning? (great for all you people who are allergic to soem unspecified juice).

I look forward to your comments as to how other products could benefit with a "contains 0%" slogan! E.g. Below the nameplate for 253 Granby — 'contains 0% profitability". (cheap shot, but fun!)

* An Aussie/English colloquialism. Taken from the fact that all important carbonated drinks (i.e. beer) are called hard drinks, and everything else with bubbles but without alcohol is a soft drink. It's was a tough country. Made tougher by the fact that ordering a soft drink in Australia does not get you inifinite refills. Mind you, there is nothing like asking a bunch of macho men you've been drinking with at a bar in Sydney if they'd like "another drink, or just a softie?"