Saturday morning TV shows… cereals, soft drinks and snack foods… cool cars and rock ‘n’ roll… 
Boomers will savor the memories with the new book, Boomer Brands!

Those Saturday morning TV shows entertained Boomer kids, but they were also vehicles for brand advertising. Chances are that’s how Boomers first got to know cereal, soft drink, and snack food brands. The “Boomer Brands” they knew and loved then, they remember to this day.

Boomer Brands: Iconic Brands that Shaped Our Childhood is a unique book that celebrates the brands of the 50s and 60s. The book covers cereal, soft drink, snack food, fast food, toy, car, beauty brands and more, as well as rock ‘n’ roll, protest and environmental brands. Brand maven Barry Silverstein shares “Boomer Brand Cameos” of over fifty of the brands Boomers grew up with: Disney, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Good Humor, Howard Johnson, Hush Puppies, MAD, Ovaltine, Twinkies, and WIFFLE Ball, to name a few. Most of these brands began during the Boomer era and are still around. Plus, Boomers will gain rare insight into how these iconic brands shaped their childhood and have a lasting impact on their life. Boomer Brands is meant to be read by Boomers, shared with Boomers, and savored for the memories!

The following is an excerpt from Boomer Brands (Copyright 2019, Barry Silverstein):

Soda Pop-ular

If you think cereals are old, then soft drinks are positively ancient. The soft drink, probably so named because it contained no “hard” alcohol, is typically comprised of carbonated water (sometimes non-carbonated), flavoring, and a sweetener. Joseph Priestley of England is credited with creating the carbonated water, or soda water, in 1767 that became the core of today’s soft drink.

The American soft drink got its start through soda fountains, first appearing in the mid-19th Century, primarily in pharmacies and then at lunch counters. Those soda fountains, of course, may have been how many Boomer kids were first introduced to soft drinks or, at the very least, ice cream sodas.(My personal favorite growing up in New York was the chocolate “egg cream,” made from chocolate syrup, soda water, and a splash of milk... no “egg” or “cream” to speak of.) Bottling technology pushed the consumption of soft drinks to new heights.

Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, the two leading brands of American soda (or “pop” in some parts of the country), were both created in drug stores. Atlanta, Georgia pharmacist John Pemberton conceived of a brown carbonated drink with a distinctive taste in 1886. It was named “Coca-Cola” by his partner, Frank Robinson, who also designed the iconic script brand name. Former medical student and New Bern, North Carolina drug store owner Caleb Bradham invented “Brad’s Drink” in 1893, renaming it “Pepsi-Cola” in 1898. A little-known fact: Dr Pepper, invented by Charles Alderton, a Waco, Texas pharmacist, was actually conceived in 1885, a year earlier than Coca-Cola. In 1929, along came a lemon-lime soda that was one of the first to break away from colas. It had a long, meaningless name that was changed to “7Up” in the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the non-carbonated soft drink category was
generally populated by fruit-flavored “-ades” of all kinds. In 1927, Edwin Perkins came up with the Boomer favorite, Kool-
Aid (originally spelled “Kool-Ade”). Also in the 1920s, Yoo-hoo, a beverage that qualifies as a chocolate soft drink, was invented by New Jersey grocery store owner Natale Olivieri. It went on to become a national sensation with Boomers.

Why We Loved Soft Drinks
Think of soft drinks as sugar water with tickly bubbles. Who
can forget wrapping our meaty little hands around that cold,
contoured bottle of Coke and taking a sip of that sweet bubbly,
burpy brown beverage? And later during our childhoods, we
found that special kind of joy lurking in aluminum cans.

The hard sell of soft drink advertising during the Boomer era
was critical to brand-building. Cool slogans abounded. We
learned “Things Go Better with Coke” in 1963 and that Coke was “The Real Thing” in 1969. On the other hand, some of us discovered we were actually part of the “Pepsi Generation.”

For those of us who were insecure in our younger years, 7Up
reassured us in 1952, “You like it... it likes you!” By 1968, 7Up was picking up on our anti-establishment generational angst, calling itself the “Uncola.” In the 70s, the Uncola created a raft of Boomer-oriented psychedelic advertising employing the work of pop artist Peter Max. Meanwhile, our more aggressive side found appeal in the 60s slogan of a non-carbonated soft drink: “How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?”

During the 50s, 60s, and 70s, smack dab in the middle of our
formative years, soft drinks were in their meteoric ascendancy,
and we Boomer kids enthusiastically went along for the ride,
craving sugar in liquid form. Cola was to kids what beer was to
grown-ups. It was an addiction that surely paved the way for
other things. We socialized while we sipped, danced while we
downed a glass or two, and grooved while we guzzled. Ah, the
refreshing taste of... whatever!

Boomer kids loved another kind of “soft drink” as well – fruit
juice. We may very well have first tasted that elixir in a baby
bottle. We later learned fruit juice was just a different kind of
bottled sugar, not much healthier than soda pop, but no matter.
Chances are you had a go-to juice brand as a kid: Maybe Mott’s
Apple Juice or Welch’s Grape Juice.

About the Author

Barry Silverstein is a Boomer, freelance writer and retired direct marketing/brand marketing professional. He is the author of numerous non-fiction marketing and small business books, including Branding 123 and The Breakaway Brand. He also writes a blog for Boomers called “Happily Rewired.” Silverstein resides with his wife in the Asheville, North Carolina area.