The Pepsi Generation at Disneyland

Wow, haven't written on the blog for a month. Today I'm going to do something I don't believe I've done here, base an entire entry off a youtube video. Typically, I've focused on the LA history of the time when newspapers and radio were the means of mass communication. Today we're gonna talk about television, advertising, Disneyland (again), and soda pop.

First off, check out this amazing television commercial, shot at Disneyland, for Pepsi Cola.




First, the product. Pepsi was developed in a simpler time, when folk could sell beverages out of their home. It was also a time when carbonated beverages were mixed as pharmacies and sold as elixirs. Caleb Bradham was a pharmacist who graduated from the Univeristy of North Carolina and then attended medical school at the University of Maryland. He left med school to attend to his father's ailing business, and a few years later opened a drug store in New Bern, North Carolina called Bradham Drug Company.

Now, like most drug stores of it's day, this place had a soda fountain, and in 1898 Bradham introduced Brad's Drink which contained soda water, kola nut extract, vanilla and 'rare oils'. There was no pepsin in his drink, but since Bradham believed it aided in digestion (or at least could sell that) he named it Pepsi Cola.

In 1902, the Pepsi-Cola corporation was founded in North Carolina. In 1903, Pepsi registered it's first trademark. In 1905, Pepsi was sold for the first time in six inch bottles. With bottling, we go from Pepsi being a local product to regional and eventually national.

By 1933, after two bankruptcies, Charles Guth had begun to turn Pepsi into a profitable company. The soda was sold by 313 franchised US dealers; bottled in the US, Cuba, and England; and sold in 83 countries.

It had increased its sales by doubling the industry standard bottle (now a 12 ounce bottle) while keeping the price the same. It also began running ads targeting African-Americans, with the slogan "Pepsi-Cola Hits the Spot."

The key point from all this is that Pepsi was big like Coca-Cola, but very much the #2 soft drink. So Pepsi did what politicians and advertisers still do, target specific "fringe"groups. African-Americans, women, and starting in 1960: youth.

Post WWII America, it's been said many times, was an affluent time. With more people going to college, teens with summer jobs, marketing to youth became a key strategy. Not only do you get access to disposable income with few obligations, but it's a long term strategy as those kids become lifetime customers.

In 1960, Pepsi began a long term relationship with a new advertising agency; BBDO. Now, anyone who's watched AMC's Mad Men knows BBDO. They're a real agency, and from 1960 to 2008 they were the advertising agency with the Pepsi account. It's come up a few times on Mad Men, with Sterling Cooper bringing in young copywriters to market coffee to "the Pepsi generation" or the two times SC went after a fringe Pepsi account. There was the attempt to upscale Mountain Dew by making it a cocktail, and making a Bye Bye Birdie based commercial for Patio; the diet drink that became Diet Pepsi.

I put the "Pepsi generation" in quotes, because that was a marketing strategy created by BBDO. They labeled Pepsi as "the choice of a new generation" and advertisements made Pepsi look youthful, joyful, and hip.

Which brings us back to the 1965 Pepsi commercial at the top of the post! Only took nine paragraphs : )

Disneyland had been open for a decade when this commercial aired, opening it's gates on July 17th, 1955 (though officially to the public on July 18th). At this point it was no longer Walt's experiment, and Disneyland was starting to hit its stride with beloved rides such as Pirates of the Caribbean and experiments like the Flying Saucers. If you pay close attention, the commercial wasn't shot all over Disneyland, it was shot in Tomorrowland and Fantasyland.

1964 Disneyland Map

That map really needs to be full-sized to be appreciated in all it's glory. You can see New Orleans Square is still marked as a future attraction. Much of it came to fruition, though Blue Bayou became an upscale restaurant part of the Pirates building and Thieve's Market never came to fruition. It's clearer here (than it may be today) that this is supposed to be New Orleans of yesteryear when it was part American city, part French haven, and part Caribbean pirate port.

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln had just opened on Main Street, after appearing at the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, Queens (future site of Shea Stadium). There were still plans of building a Liberty Street off Main Street, though they never materialized at Disneyland. Neither did Edison Square. This was also the first year United Airlines had sponsored the Tiki Room.

Sponsorship had been from the beginning one of the ways that Disney funded his dream project. It's no surprise that Pepsi shot a commercial at Disneyland considering they were one of those sponsors. Up in Frontierland, you can see Pepsi-Cola presenting Slue Foot Sue's Golden Horseshoe.

The old Horsehoe building was all white, with red white and blue bunting, and banners hanging that read Golden Horseshoe Review with the script Pepsi Cola logo to the left. However, the Horseshoe didn't factor into this Pepsi commercial at all. Let's run down the rides featured. Also, note that the commercial is in black and white. The first big push toward all color television happened in the fall of 1965.

Start with a Skyway car going to Fantasyland through the Matterhorn. Cut to, a happy couple riding the Matterhorn Bobsleds. Brief shot of a sign reading Disneyland (incase you weren't sure where we were).  Cut to, couple riding Dumbo the Elephant. Use Skyway car returning to Tomorrowland to cut to Tomorrowland footage (that's quite clever, this commercial is fantastically scripted). Subway emerging from waterfall. Cut to Monorail. Getting off the train, getting a Pepsi from a vending machine at the station. And finish with happy girl on Flying Saucers.

Disneyland Skyway. Photo credit LAPL

Fantasyland has changed quite a bit from 1965 to the present day. The Dumbo ride was over by the entrance to Frontierland and the Skyway station (no longer in use), which makes the narrative of the commercial make sense. The part where the Skyway passed through the Matterhorn was called the Skyway through Glacier Grotto. The reality was less a a glacier grotto and more looking at the Matterhorn cars climbing their first hill.

Original Dumbo Ride. Photo credit LAPL

After taking a Skyway car back through the Matterhorn, our happy couple goes on the Submarine Voyage, which would have still been painted military grey and not the explorer yellow subs of today. The couple rides the monorail (which by that point had a second stop at the Disneyland Hotel) before hopping on the Disneyland Railroad (which stopped at Fantasyland [soon New Orleans Square] Fantasyland [soon Videopolis then Toontown] and Tomorrowland.

Now we're gonna spend some time with the product. We see the (then) new Pepsi logo, of a red and blue Pepsi Cap with Pepsi in block letters. The glass bottle rolls out of the vending machine, and there's a built in bottle opener. While throughout the commercial we've just heard the refrain "Come alive, you're in the Pepsi generation", now we get the full ad copy touting all the benefits of drinking Pepsi.

It all sounds so youthful. More spark, more swing, it's crisp and bold. We also get an extended look at the couple. They're both wearing sweaters, and collared shirts, but she's got her hair pulled back with a fabric headband. His hair is neat, but long; she's wearing a skirt but it's knee length and sporty. This is the young face of a generation.

The Flying Saucers we close on only lasted for five years. Using the same technology that has inspired Luigi's Flying Tires at California Adventure, this E ticket attraction was a space age take on bumper cars. The space is where the Magic Eye Theater sits now (currently showing Captain Eo, in front of where Space Mountain would be built.



The Douglas Aircraft Company Rocket to the Moon became the trip to Mars and is now a pizza place. Not yet built is the Carousel of Progress, which stayed at the New York World's Fair through 1964-65 and was brought to Disneyland in 1967; displacing the Space Bar and dancing area. 
1967 was the year New Tomorrowland debuted. Those hip kids looking for a place to dance would get the Tomorrowland Terrace sponsored by none other than Coca-Cola. Pepsi's youth oriented advertising culture had caught on if Coke was sponsoring dance plazas. As part of the New Tomorrowland remodel the Astro Jets in the center of Tomorrowland were raised and renamed the Rocket-Jets; placed above the new PeopleMover.
Disneyland kept changing as the world kept changing, which suited the Pepsi Generation just fine. It was the coffee drinking Mad Men who'd have to adjust.