TASTE OF A NEW GENERATION [394]

Marking its 125th anniversary in 2023, despite having first gone on sale as “Brad’s Drink” in 1893, Pepsi unveiled its latest rebrand in North America on 28th March, rolling out to the rest of the world in 2024. Currently a red and blue circle bisected by a white line with “pepsi” placed under it, the new logo returns the name in bold capitals to the newly wavy line, termed by them as a “pulse”, in what is essentially a refresh of the branding used from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Pepsi’s Chief Marketing Officer, Todd Kaplan, said in PepsiCo’s press release that “This new visual system brings out the best of the Pepsi brand's rich heritage, while taking a giant leap forward to set it up for success in an increasingly digital world.” Not unlike the BBC’s brand refresh from 2021 [which I discussed here], the press release accepts their brand needs to work beyond the static logo featured on the products themselves: “the revitalized and distinct design introduces movement and animation into the visual system, unlocking more flexibility for Pepsi to move between physical and digital spaces, from retail shelves to the metaverse.”

However, the sentence that made me react irrationally was: “The logo and visual identity thoughtfully borrows equity from its 125-year history and incorporates modern elements to create a look that is unapologetically current and undeniably Pepsi.” My initial thought was, “Borrows equity”? Surely it would have been easier to admit “our older logo is more recognisable, and our customers are more nostalgic for it, so we are introducing a new version of it”? And doesn’t “equity” mean the value of something minus its liabilities, so Pepsi are removing elements of their branding that aren’t working? Does this explain why the Pepsi brand isn’t as timeless as that of Coca-Cola, despite how many “Coke” wordmarks they have used over time?

I now know that “brand equity” is a more specific term, relating to the social value of a brand-name, measuring its worth as a financial asset, as a product among other similar items, and public awareness. Reinforcing brand awareness not only involves removing elements that no longer work, but questioning whether what does still works as effectively as it did upon introduction, introducing new elements while maintaining consistency. The BBC logo was changed because it was required to be more flexible on screen; the cultural goodwill towards Volkswagen engendered by their Type 2 camper van helped it pass the “Dieselgate” scandal with the new, nostalgic ID. Buzz electric vehicle; the Co-Op Group reintroducing the original version of their “cloverleaf” logo in 2016, a much stronger brand than had been used in the previous twenty years [which I also talked about here].

In the knowledge of the “cola wars” of the 1980s, the chief objective is to delay changing the product for as long as possible. Coca-Cola famously blinked in 1985, using the “New Coke” controversy to reintroduce the original recipe under the new brand “Coca-Cola Classic”. Likewise, Pepsi was reformulated in the 1920s, after it had been bought out of bankruptcy. For me, Pepsi will remain the cola sold when the restaurant doesn’t serve Coke, but I am well aware of it. 

SAY, SAY, SAY WHAT YOU WANT [393]

Despite having seen many episodes of the game show “Catchphrase”, I had not realised it began with a rule that contestants could not buzz to “catch the phrase” in a computer-generated image until a bell sounded, as confirmed by an incident in the first episode of its second series: the first image appeared, the words “HOT TIN ROOF” shown in tall, blue letters, and the image of a cat is then rendered in ovals and lines that takes the computer two seconds to generate. The first contestant, Dot, buzzes in to guess, just before the bell sounds. The host, comedian Roy Walker, tells Dot that she was slightly too early, offering the other contestant, Andrew, the chance to answer, correctly guessing “cat on a hot tin roof”. Dot went on to win a holiday and £430.

While the second series introduced a second-half, fastest-finger-first “Ready Money Round” that did not use the bell, its use in the initial rounds was not dropped until 2000, fourteen years after the show began on ITV, and just as Walker was replaced with Nick Weir, who is now in charge of entertainment for Royal Caribbean cruise line. But the unwritten reason for the rule made itself clear upon watching “cat on a hot tin roof” back a couple more times: the bell signals when enough of the computer-generated image had been rendered to give the contestants a reasonable chance of getting the answer right.

“Catchphrase” is one of those game shows that, like “Call My Bluff” and “Every Second Counts”, is in fact an American game show that was cancelled after only months on air, only to then have a lengthy run when transplanted to the UK. The original US two-word-titled “Catch Phrase” was among the first game shows to use computer graphics, initially by Limicon Inc. of Toronto, Canada, albeit rudimentary images that often relied upon contextualising words placed on screen, and not far away from the quality of the first screensavers for PCs. These were recycled for the UK version before slowly being replaced by more colours and movement, less reliance on text, zooming in and out of images, and now full 3D animation.

The distributor supplying the US “Catch Phrase” promised TV stations a replacement game show by the distributor if ratings didn’t work out, which happened after just three months. Just as Roy Walker introduced the second series of the UK version by thanking its audience for making it the biggest new game show of 1986, the US producer was trying to shoehorn the “catch phrases” into a “Wheel of Fortune”-style roulette wheel game of chance, a pilot show of which failed to sell in 1987, and again two years later when retried with married couples. 

What was missing was the glue that held the UK “Catchphrase” together: the catchphrases. “Say what you see”, “keep pressing, keep guessing”, and “it’s good, but it’s not right” were all originated by Roy Walker and used by subsequent hosts, and as iconic as show mascot Mr. Chips - the US version had the originally-named Herbie, but had no equivalent of encouraging the contestants if they gave a wrong answer, or buzzed in too early.

THE POWER GOES DIRECT TO MY HEAD [392]

Coach trips to London usually involve my crossing the River Thames at Chelsea Bridge, as the chimneys of Battersea Power Station poke above expensive new apartment complexes. After ten years of redevelopment, and nearly forty years after its last coal and oil-powered turbine was silenced, Battersea Power Station opened to the public in October 2022 as a mixed-use development: apartments, offices, restaurants, an observation tower on one of the chimneys, and Britain’s newest shopping mall. Six months later, I travelled the Underground’s extension to the Northern Line to visit the station, and was more overwhelmed than I expected.

The Art Deco exterior of Battersea Power Station was famously designed in the 1930s by the architect Giles Gilbert Scott, he of the red phone box, Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, and the later Bankside Power Station on the South Bank of the Thames. Just as American skyscrapers were adding adornments, stainless steel and coloured bricks, the power station’s adornments appear to have been cut into its surface, like the entire station had been carved from a block of red bricks. 

Inside, the two phases of construction are very apparent: the pre-war Turbine Hall A continues the carved lines, iron girders, marble and glass roof, while the post-war Turbine Hall B is instead uses tiles, stainless steel and fluorescent light. In both halls, the conversion to shopping units has been made within the confines of the existing structure, with only the gangways and escalators being obvious additions. The buildings outside and between the halls required further access I did not have or need when I visited – my rucksack was too big to visit the observation deck – but I expect the same care has been followed. I did want an excuse to visit the Control Room B bar, its walls festooned with equipment and dials, but it was 10.30am.

Battersea Power Station has been a listed building since 1980, when it was still in operation, but its vastness played against it – stripped of its roof during an aborted attempt to convert it into a theme park in the 1980s, when owned by the operator of Alton Towers, it was considered to be at risk in the 2000s, before being put up for sale again in 2012, and converted to the various uses for which it was given planning permission back in 1990. Meanwhile, Bankside Power Station remains an unlisted building, even being issued a certificate in 1993 to prevent it from being listed, but its sale to the Tate Gallery the following year saved it by having an immediate plan for reuse.

The forty-two-acre site of Battersea Power Station is owned by a group of Malaysian investors who are building further apartment buildings around it. Standing by the power station itself, that encasement may feel more like protection – just as Marcopolo House, a postmodern office building by Chelsea Bridge, was razed to the ground for apartments, those apartments will one day be razed too, but the power station will remain preserved for the nation. It is early days for whether these buildings form a community, but they could – if their inhabitants don’t shop and eat there, I’m sure one of them has a good idea for repurposing the turbine halls.

JAPANESE GENTLEMEN, STAND UP PLEASE [391]

The Japanese supergroup Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), formed by Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, remains the biggest musical discovery I have made while writing here, quickly becoming a favourite band of mine once I discovered how of one of their songs, “Behind the Mask”, became a hit for Eric Clapton, by way of Michael Jackson [link].

 

With the passing of Takahashi on 11th January, and of Sakamoto on 28th March, I am continuing to learn that YMO is only the collective pinnacle for three accomplished musicians with long and varied careers, with each of their discographies their own rabbit hole waiting for me to dive in, and supporting the conclusion I have already made about YMO: they are as important to the history of electronic pop music as Kraftwerk, and that history cannot be properly understood without them.

 

YMO was Hosono’s initial idea of an instrumental disco band that could reach beyond Japan. Both Takahashi and Sakamoto worked with Hosono previously, and Takahashi already had some success in the UK as drummer for the Sadistic Mika Band, which had supported Roxy Music on tour, and had the ignominy of performing on TV under a banner reading “The Old Gley Whistle Test”. The self-titled album that released in 1978 was intended to be a one-off project, aiming to explore ideas of Asian-ness and Orientalism through both original compositions and interpretations of American easy-listening tunes, but a reworking of Martin Denny’s exotica tune “Firecracker” reached number 17 in the UK singles chart and number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100, later being sampled from Afrika Bambaataa and De La Soul to Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez. Suddenly, YMO became a proper band.

 

The follow-up album, 1979’s “Solid State Survivor”, contains “Behind the Mask” along with “Technopolis”, often credited with initiating the techno genre, and “Rydeen”, pushing their equipment to emulate animal sounds, but Western audiences initially found highlights from this album mixed into 1980’s “X∞Multiplies”, appearing alongside ska instrumentals and new wave songs in the space originally taken by comedy sketches. This culminated not only in a comedy cover of Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up”, but in YMO’s performance of it on the US TV institution “Soul Train”. This all changes again with 1981’s “BGM”, short for “background music”, with a rockier edge, but also a more crystallised sound, with final track “Loom” featuring a simulation of dripping water as if in a cave, and a single glissando that lasts for a full two minutes.

 

YMO was a band that encompassed everything, not unlike the “city pop” genre that built in Japan from the ate 1970s, characterised as urban music for urbanites that took influences from funk, soul, jazz, Latin and middle-of-the-road pop. The recording of their performances also encompassed a great shift from analogue to digital recording; from buzzing subtractive synthesisers to glassy FM synths; the introduction of new equipment from the likes of Roland and Yamaha, YMO being the first band to use Roland’s famous TR-808 drum machine both recorded and live; and from performing live in smaller venues to huge stadiums – “After Service”, their last live album before breaking up in 1983, sounds like it was recorded in front of an audience of teenage girls, but their popularity in Japan was akin to The Beatles at the time. The band reformed for a further album in 1992, and for many further live performances, each sounding different from the last both through musical ability and changing technology.

 

If listening to YMO for the first time, start with “Firecracker” or “Behind the Mask”, and don’t stop. 

TOO MANY ROADS BYPASS MY WAY [390]

The Ford Capri is a coupé car made by Ford of Europe from 1986.

The Ford Capri is a convertible sports car made by Ford of Australia from 1989 to 1994.

The Ford Capri is the possible name of an upcoming sports utility vehicle from Ford of Europe, continuing the replacement of their original car range that included the Focus and the Fiesta [which I talked about here] with a more radical range of electric vans and trucks that includes another new SUV, the Ford Explorer.

However, this will not be the same Ford Explorer as sold in the United States. Ford didn’t really sell Jeep-like cars in the UK until 1993 with the Maverick, but that isn’t the same Maverick as the compact car sold in the US during the 1970s, which was replaced by the Ford Granada... which was supposed to be the same Ford Granada that popped up in Europe at the same time, but too many changes needed to be made to fit American standards and tastes. Lower-specification Granadas were sold in the UK as the Consul, reusing the name of the car it was meant to replace, as Ford was being sued over their use of the name by the TV company and motorway service station group also named Granada, an action which ultimately proved unsuccessful – Granada’s TV channel would later show Granadas being driven recklessly on “The Sweeney” and “The Professionals”. Traditionally the largest car in Ford’s range, the Consul had a coupé variant from 1961 to 1964, known as the Consul Capri...

Just as there initially was animosity over the radically different Ford Sierra replacing the popular Ford Cortina [link], there has been a ground swell in the UK media over the return of the name “Capri” – the Cortina-based European coupé was both an aspiration and rite of passage for British drivers of a certain age, especially those who pretended their entry-level 1.3 litre car was just like the top-line 2.8 or 3 litre V6 model. Since 1986, the Capri niche has been filled by Ford by the Probe, Cougar and Puma, the latter also a small coupé reinvented as a SUV, before being finally plugged by simply selling the Mustang in Europe, having been the Capri’s original inspiration. Nearly four thousand Capris remain on British roads, according to howmanyleft.co.uk – I would say that everyone that wanted a Capri like that has one, while others bought the Audis, BMWs and “hot hatches” that took the Capri’s place in the car market.

Ford can name any car it wants “Capri” – it first used the name on a series of Lincoln cars in the 1950s, and the Australian Capri was sold as the Mercury Capri in the US, just as the European Capri had been in the 1970s. Holding the rights to use names matters in the car industry – Ford of Europe wanted to call their Mustang emulator the “Colt”, but were stopped by Mitsubishi, hence using a name they already owned.