Last week, I expressed my long-time desire to understand this slogan:
[Photo credit: xxxxxCanManxxxxx at The Can Museum]
But second and more importantly, I’m writing about this in the hopes of solving a decades-old mystery, one which confounds me to this day. What in the name of hepped-up marketing drivel is “PopUlating the world” actually supposed to mean?
When reader Gustaf L. wrote in, he pointed out the regional use of “pop” to mean “soda”. I had actually understood that aspect, because like Jolt, I come from Rochester, NY. When my family moved outside of “pop” country, I had to train myself to say “soda”, or face being mocked mercilessly.
But for me, the wordplay falls very flat1. Here’s Merriam-Webster’s definition for “populate”:
Whenever I read “populating”, I think of “giving birth to more”, as in the second definition above. “Re-populating the planet after a devastating asteroid impact wiped out 98% of humanity”, for instance. Obviously, that doesn’t make much sense here. At best, I suppose, Jolt could perhaps have been implying that the soda itself is essentially taking over the world? It might just barely work.
But there are so many better ways to get that “pop” in there. And for that matter, the capital “U” is bizarre as well.
How about something like “More POPular than ever”? Or, to quote an obscure Mitch Hedberg riff, “It’s growing in POPularity”?2
Am I workshopping improvements for a dumb slogan from a formerly defunct, now refunct, soda from the ’90’s? Yes, it seems so. You read it, and you can’t unread it.
Footnotes:
Pun again acknowledged. ↩︎
Here’s the relevant audio clip from track nine of “Mitch All Together”, entitled “Business Cards”. ↩︎
