Emotive Forces Shape The Gestalt of the Brand Identity
I did my undergrad in philosophy, and so have a particular affection for high falutin word salad. The other day I was in the grocery store wandering the soda aisle looking for seltzer. I walked by a shrine of Pepsi and viscerally remembered the infamous line from the Pepsi rebrand document (PDF):
Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity.
I wept. Poetics unmatched since Baudrillard kicked the bucket in 2007. No coincidence, I think, that a year later this work of art manifested itself into existence.
This document is one of the GOATs of strategic psycho-babble. An unholy combination of esoteric physics and B-School marketing. It gives the Time Cube guy a run for his money.
Before one imagines a spherical cow, you must first invent the universe. The interdimensional hologram is thereby reified from the limited 2D plane to the euphoric 3D space:
This shrine in the store had a gravity all its own. The light reflecting off the brilliant cans was curved by the relativity of space and time. The rays met my eyes with a proposition: quench your thirst. The object of my desire was my own voice. Jouissance was sublimated into the post-totality embodied theory of limitless castration:
As thoughts, concepts, and epiphanies swirled around my conscious mind I was swept across the blade of infinity toward the recognition of the Other and the satisfaction of the Ultimate Dialectic.
So I paused. Took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. In that black void behind the eyelids I was no longer at the supermarket, instead suspended in the primordial soup. Afloat in the Womb of the Real:
Rejuvenated, I put the can down, and offered my gratitude to the Pepsi shrine and my ancestors before grabbing a 12-pack of unflavored store-brand carbonated water and beelining for the checkout.