“Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers projects that the loss to the US economy because of tariffs would be comparable to oil prices doubling.”
Said Linda Berkshire, our Director of Revenue Operations, a role which we didn’t know we had given our weekly roundtable with Chief Revenue Officer Kristin MacLaud, whom we’re absolutely terrified of. But the point is, how many people with revenue titles do we need in this place?
Whatever.
Linda kept saying “…we’ve never seen anything like this before” over and over to the point we left to go get more “Everything Bagel” seasoning despite the fact we had a Costco-sized industrial tub of the stuff in the supply closet, right next to the Simple Green, which probably isn’t a good idea.
It’s not that we didn’t empathize or want to help her process the fact that tariffs are both one of the biggest self-inflicted wounds we’ve put on our economy in history and a direct threat to the weather machine we’re working on in our skunkworks. It’s that our Chief Marketing Officer Paul Newman is obsessed with the seeming lack of effective communal action to protest in kind, ala what happened after the April 23,1985 launch of New Coke, to the degree that’s all Paul talks about in meetings now.
It’s crazy. He’s literally not doing any work.
Paul Ventures Down The Case Study Rabbit Hole
Paul says the New Coke product launch was orchestrated by Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldrige Jr. to resolve significant issues around technology transfers with China by requitting their well-documented unrequited love of carbonated beverages with a sweetness that leans more toward vanilla and citrus notes, thereby greasing the wheels for U.S. companies to export advanced technology to China, and in return gain access to the rapidly expanding Chinese market, neither of which resulted in any long-term problems whatsoever.
And Paul claims that what Mr. Baldridge couldn’t foretell was the emotional connection and brand loyalty (which is marketing-speak for status and affiliation) consumers had with the original Coke, to the degree the change was perceived as an attack on American culture, leading to widespread media coverage of public protests.
Of which Paul unfortunately found footage, made a reel, and ultimately made us all watch under the guise of presenting us with the funniest thing his dog has ever done with ornamental yard art. Because he knew such topics are simply irresistible to the modern knowledge workers gathered for their weekly Official Friday Tea Cake Party To Get To Know Each Other Better And Agree To Be Nice (which we ironically do every Thursday).
Indeed, Paul hoodwinked us into watching video footage of the following.
1. The “Boston Coke Party”
‘80s Bostonese got their Brooks Brothers khakis in a bunch and staged a “Boston Coke Party,” which sounds like what our former CFO Zeus used to do in the bathroom during lunch.
We watched as residents poured bottles of New Coke into the streets in a somewhat hackneyed attempt to mirror the 1773 Boston Tea Party—as if this carbonated beverage switcheroo was somehow on par with colonial taxation tyranny.
Paul provided the following unsolicited voiceover:
“It was about betrayal of our cultural heritage and universal right to become unhealthily overweight. Which is why in modern times no bespoke maker of artisanal mayonnaise across New England dares to change their recipe (or let anyone know that they did).”
2. Seattle Residents Dumping New Coke Into Sewers
Meanwhile, in the perpetually insecure, always-the-bridesmaid city of Seattle, residents weren’t going to be outdone by some loud, smug, Red Sox fans with bad haircuts and mysoginistic tendencies. No, Seattleites became the epicenter of anti-New Coke activism, as evidenced by grainy video of them dramatically dumping Coke’s reformulated drink into the sewers as if performing some kind of fizzy exorcism.
Paul said, “This wasn’t just random, disenchanted pre-hipster rage—it was a coordinated effort to pressure Coca-Cola, complete with legal threats. I assume a collective therapy session followed, where everyone shared their feelings about being constantly ignored by the rest of the country, excluding Portland, Oregon.”
3. Gay Mullins’ $100,000 Campaign
Then there was extensive footage of Gay Mullins, the patron saint of carbonated beverage justice and founder of the not-made-up-militia, “Old Cola Drinkers of America.” Gay invested $100,000 of his retirement savings to fight New Coke like it was an invading army. Apparently he set up the only non-pornographic 900-number phone lines that have ever existed, handed out extraordinarily clever “Coke Was It” bumper stickers that the mob simply adored, and staged rallies where people who apparently didn’t have jobs or didn’t want to keep their jobs showed up to mill about and holler.
We watched as Mullins called New Coke “totally un-American,” which made him crack cocaine for news outlets, despite an abundance of evidence that there were bigger threats to democracy at the time, not the least of which was the Soviet Union (as far as we knew back then).
Paul Rails On And On About Marketing Strategy Stuff
While the absurdity of the footage generated some legit chuckles, the reel’s conclusion served as a virtual starting gun as every employee jumped up to escape the looming, insufferable Paul Newton Concluding Marketing Lecture that’s apparently the stuff of legend among our competitors. That is, every employee but Tim Lane, our new IT guy, who was still expecting tea cakes, unaware that it was Paul’s turn to bring them, which Paul had absolutely no intention of doing.
Tim later recounted Paul’s speech, despite the fact we made it clear we both didn’t care and wanted Tim to never set foot in our office unannounced again unless he’s there to solve an IT problem we’re unaware of, which happens all the time.
“What these protests have in common is that they were idiosyncratic, dramatic, and thus worth sharing. And clearly the fact there was no social media back then further demonstrates that point. And bear in mind that Coca-Cola took exactly 79 days to change back to the old formula after launching New Coke—one of the most famous responses to consumer protest in marketing history.
Despite our unpresented level of connectivity in modern times we’re left with impotent proxies for action that don’t lead to any community-organized action. Just look at the disjointed tariff protests: TikTok videos where well-coiffed speakers show off how smart they are and/or their passion for macroeconomics, TikTok videos where farmers, labor unions, and various manufacturing representatives rant about how screwed they are…and then, of course, one could deem ubiquitous lawsuits, and retaliatory tariffs as forms of protest too.”
Sigh. Thank you Paul.
The good news is, as of this past week Paul is back to work doing his job and exploding ham in the microwave during lunch. The guy loves ham, and brings it in all sorts of forms, the latest of which was apparently a slice of honey ham next to sides of creamed corn and mashed potatoes, which are also currently painted across the interior of our Panasonic Genius Sensor Inverter NN-SN67HS ($155, thank you very much).
That being said, he has a point. Something really clicked with the New Coke stuff. When no one was looking we poked around and found that one New Coke protestor even told Newsweek, “When they took old Coke off the market, they violated my freedom of choice. It’s as basic as the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence. We went to war with Japan over that freedom.”
So maybe the combination of hyperbole, theatrical demonstrations, legal challenges, media manipulation, all gift wrapped by clear path toward self-organization would help tip the scales on this tariff business.
We hope so. Our weather machine is dependent upon it.
Do you have funny videos of your pet attacking yard art? Great! Keep them to yourself, we’re not interested. But if you want to get on our good side you’ll share this newsletter with your favorite Canadian third cousin. Consider it a step toward mending international relations.