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A version of this story appeared in Total Annarchy, my fortnightly newsletter that helps you be a better writer, storyteller, marketer. Get it in your inbox; you’ll love it. I’m in a meeting in a Dallas, Texas, hotel. The drinks station at the back of the room has a few fun retro bottles of Dr Pepper. Thick glass, not plastic. Sweetened with “Imperial pure cane sugar,” as opposed to—I don’t know—crushed candy hearts? The high-fructose sighs of a thousand kittens? And most curiously, three numbers in an implied triangle formation: 10, 2, 4. As in the above photo. It turns out that the numbers are a reference to “Drink a bite to eat at 10, 2, and 4,” a marketing campaign inspired by a 1920s study by Columbia University’s Dr. Walter Eddy, who found that a person’s blood sugar is lowest around those hours. And because the first 5-hour energy shots […]