Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren volk Bomb. Here in the United States,
Speaker 1: our milk is packaged in gallon jugs. All are liquid dairy,
Speaker 1: and liquid dairy substitutes tend to come in pints, courts,
Speaker 1: and gallons. All US customary measurements based on the Imperial system.
Speaker 1: But our soda comes into leader bottles, a metric measurement,
Speaker 1: and extra confusingly, twelve ounds cans US customary Again, Why
Speaker 1: in the same country would two liquids be packaged and
Speaker 1: distributed using different systems of measurements. The short but sticky
Speaker 1: answer is that this is just one of many examples
Speaker 1: of America's fractured approach to measurement. The US customary system
Speaker 1: is a holdover from colonial times and based on old
Speaker 1: British standards. The United States is one of only three
Speaker 1: countries in the world that hasn't adopted the metric system,
Speaker 1: a Liberia and me and mar being the other two.
Speaker 1: But American SODA's embrace of the leader coincided with a
Speaker 1: brief window in history when it seemed that the metric
Speaker 1: system might take over. Let's explain in the early nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Coca Cola was selling roughly ten times as much product
Speaker 1: as Pepsi was selling. Desperate to steal more of Coke's
Speaker 1: market share, Pepsi began trying to brainstorm a new and
Speaker 1: eye catching bottle that could compete with Coke's classic curved bottle.
Speaker 1: They got nowhere. Coke's bottle wasn't just visually distinctive, it
Speaker 1: also resisted breakage throughout the product's life cycle from bottling
Speaker 1: conveyor belts to vending machines. Enter John Scully, then a
Speaker 1: new marketing executive at Pepsi. As he tells it in
Speaker 1: his book Moonshot, his research showed he couldn't come up
Speaker 1: with a better bottle design, but he did make an
Speaker 1: interesting discovery. Pepsi drinkers were frustrated because they were always
Speaker 1: running out of their favorite soda. Scully realized that he
Speaker 1: didn't need a new bottle design, he needed a bigger bottle.
Speaker 1: Pepsi asked chemical giant DuPont to come up with a
Speaker 1: suitable material, and a year later, the plastic two litter
Speaker 1: bottle was born. Customers would get more of the product
Speaker 1: they wanted. Pepsi could stop competing head to head with
Speaker 1: coke for a time anyway, and Pepsi would sell greater
Speaker 1: volumes of its soda, which meant increased revenue. Not to mention,
Speaker 1: stores wouldn't have to worry about broken glass from mishaps
Speaker 1: with stockers or consumers. In a make or break marketing moment,
Speaker 1: Scully met with Walmart founder Sam Walton to convince him
Speaker 1: of the two Leaders merits. As he handed the product Walton,
Speaker 1: Scully purposefully dropped the bottle, which bounced unbroken on the floor.
Speaker 1: Walton was sold, and so was the rest of America.
Speaker 1: Scully made bottling history and also rode his two Leaders
Speaker 1: success all the way to becoming the CEO of Pepsi
Speaker 1: and later the CEO of Apple. But okay, two leaders
Speaker 1: is equivalent to about half a gallon point five to
Speaker 1: eight gallons to be more precise, So why didn't scullion
Speaker 1: companies sell half gallon bottles of Pepsi? Well? Since eighty six,
Speaker 1: Congress had been trying to get the US to convert
Speaker 1: to metric, including the Metric Conversion Act passed in nineteen five.
Speaker 1: Right as Pepsi was developing their new bottle, many companies
Speaker 1: thought it was just a matter of time before all
Speaker 1: products became metric, but the legislation, as all metric related
Speaker 1: legislation before and after, stipulated that action was voluntary. That
Speaker 1: was enough to keep the rules from taking widespread effect.
Speaker 1: No one can point to a single reason why. The
Speaker 1: theories include that people thought the switch because they thought
Speaker 1: it was somehow anti American, or that they felt more
Speaker 1: comfortable with the familiar Imperial measurements, or that it would
Speaker 1: have been too costly to convert existing systems and product
Speaker 1: lines over and since they didn't have to switch, many didn't.
Speaker 1: So milk never went metric in the United States. Due
Speaker 1: to scale, location and tradition. Sodas like coke and pepsi
Speaker 1: have a long shelf life and can be shipped all
Speaker 1: over the world. Milk is far more perishable and typically
Speaker 1: sourced from a local or regional producer. Milk has traditionally
Speaker 1: been sold in the United States in pints, courts, and gallons,
Speaker 1: a custom that seems destined to stay. Still, there's hope
Speaker 1: yet for the metric system in America. There are many
Speaker 1: products measured in metric only or primarily besides soda in
Speaker 1: the US. These include wine, liquor, medications, and beauty products.
Speaker 1: Among other items. However, there's still no regulatory requirement in
Speaker 1: place that manufacturers must use metric, but since lots of
Speaker 1: American products are sold overseas, you'll usually see both types
Speaker 1: of measurements on the packaging. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other systematic topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio.
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