Coca-Cola Switches Lilt Lover's Paradise Pineapple & Grapefruit to Fanta Brand
Will your soft drink Lilt options be ruined or is the PR machine of no news is bad news motto winning audience shares again?
Said to be the same great taste and recipe, Lilt Pineapple and Grapefruit drink is having a rebrand facelift to Fanta Tropical. The question remains: Are you outraged or excited?
Personally, my opinion isn’t strong either way but I do always find such marketing tactics of equal measure amusing as I do intriguing and clever. It’s already been on Good Morning Britain and when I plugged it into Google a flood of news articles such as the likes of: The Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail talked of the axing change from one brand of drink to another.
After a history of 48 years and launched in 1975, owner’s Coca-Cola, have assured its fans of the drink that only the packaging is to change and the same great taste will remain. One thing is for sure they’re hitting the big-time tropical limelight for some free PR and attention which will undoubtedly set sales soaring as consumers are primed for the switch.
With plenty of people already speculating of a change over the last few months it seems savvy shoppers have a keen eye for soft drink detail and are ahead of the rebrand curve with Coca- Cola assuring Lilt lover’s that the tangy and tropical flavours are still bursting with tingling delight even under the guise of its new brand.
Available as of the day of commercial romance, the 14th February – the strapline, ‘The Totally Tropical Taste,’ will be swinging into its new look on your supermarket and seller shelves -- which considering when it began its vibrant journey was only sold in the UK, Ireland, Gibraltar and the Seychelles, it still continues to be a UK household name with a Caribbean twist.
The Daily Mail suggests heartbreak, although I’d like to hope it doesn’t go that far and perhaps it’s only a mere disappointment with a large accumulation of memes (as seen in the Daily Mail’s article) now in existence – which will no doubt continue to raise volumes of content and online chatter – therefore I don’t think the Coca-Cola brand with a 2021 global estimated net value of around $39 billion (around 40% market share in the US in the first 9 months of 2022) will be hit too hard or even at all -- in fact I bet they and all of their brands will continue to thrive.
The marketing of any brand or business is an essential part of long and short term strategy with some that once introduced and cemented into the minds of consumers prop themselves up without the need for a continual introduction like the oldest soft drink brand that’s been around for over 200 years and allegedly the first bottled soft drink, (also owned by Coca-Cola since 1999) Schweppes Classic, which was brought to production in 1783 and even had a make believe British countryside town in 1951 labelled as, ‘Schweppshire,’ as a part of its advert feature.
With social media and its influencers, the ability to sky rocket the unknown to the forefront has grown. Take for instance the PRIME drinks created by YouTuber’s KSI & Logan Paul in 2022 whom say they have, ‘cracked the code,’ and where their flavoured range of energy drinks are now so popular limits have been set on the amount you can buy at any one time and where swarms of people gather at events to get their hands on the drink -- they are said to have made $110 million internationally and $250 million in retail sales with $45 million said to have been made from January sales this year alone.
As someone who grew up with the guided belief that fizzy drinks were only ever an indulgence for special occasions, I still don’t drink many of them and save it for that treat meal or lunch out – my teeth thank me for it as I still have no fillings but will my taste-buds ever forgive me? I’ll have to do some market testing drink related research to find out.
Have you seen the hullabaloo media storm over Lilt rebranding its tropical drink to Fanta and what do you think of its takeover of headlines once again like Mars Wrigley with Bounty and Cadbury’s with Twirl in their 2022 Christmas tubs?
Send me your comments, thoughts, ideas and opinions below and feel free to share any similar stories that you’ve heard of...
NB: All artwork is supplied by my son as a part of his college creative media work experience.
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