Tango (drink)

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Tango flavours

Tango is a carbonated soft drink sold primarily in the United Kingdom. It was launched by the Beecham Group in 1958, and was bought by Britvic in 1986.

Originally, Tango was the name of the orange flavour in a range of different flavoured drinks that each had their own name. In the 1990s, long after the other products in the range had passed into obscurity, the Tango brand was expanded into other flavours, including apple, lemon, cherry and blackcurrant. The lemon and blackcurrant flavours have been discontinued and Fruit Twist has replaced them.

Advertisements for Tango feature various bizarre occurrences with the catchphrase "You know when you've been Tango'd" produced by the agency HHCL. These began in 1991 with an ad featuring a man being slapped around the face by an orange-clad person (Peter Geeves) immediately after drinking Tango. It received widespread condemnation after a craze for "Tangoing" people swept the nation's playgrounds, and there were reports of children receiving serious injuries or even being deafened by being slapped on the ears. Whether or not these accounts were true, subsequent advertisements have used less dangerous practices. However, the first advertisement was named the 3rd best television commercial of all time in a 2000 poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4.

Other slogans used include "You need it because you're weak" and "Feed the Tango Inside".

1 The Tango "gene"
2 Blackcurrant Tango
3 Controversy
4 Sony Bravia Parody
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] The Tango "gene"

The tango gene was one advertising campaign that warned viewers that if they didn't purchase Tango, the Tango gene would be inserted into other edible items, afterwhich came an advertisement proclaiming "You know when you've had sprouts".

[edit] Blackcurrant Tango

For the launch of Blackcurrant Tango in 1996 HHCL produced the memorable 'St. George' television and cinema advertisment. In the advertisment a member of Tango's customer service staff, 'Ray Gardner,' provides a response to a letter of complaint about the flavour of Blackcurrant Tango he has received from a French exchange student. The letter prompts an increasingly jingoistic tirade during which Ray Gardner removes his suit to reveal bright purple boxing shorts. In one continuous take he walks from his high-rise office, marches out of Tango's building and is joined by a flag waving crowd on the White Cliffs of Dover. He climbs into a boxing ring and as three Harrier Jump Jets hover in the background, he can be heard shouting, Come on France, Europe, the world. I'll take you all on! I'm Ray Gardner. I drink Blackcurrant Tango. Come and get me!

The advertisement was notable for the use of digital editing to seamlessly merge a number of tracking shots including the final transition from a sky camera to a helicopter shot. Ray Gardner later won the "ITV Best Actor In A Commercial" Award for his performance.

[edit] Controversy

One 1992 advertisement showed a man in an orange suit, slapping people in the face. The advertisement was later pulled because of alleged incidents in playgrounds across Britain where young children had their ear drums damaged; however it has also been suggested that young children were too weak to cause such damage and that it was in fact students who had injured themselves, and this is why the advertisement was pulled.

[edit] Sony Bravia Parody

In early 2006 an advertising campaign for 'Tango Clear' was launched, parodying the Sony BRAVIA LCD TV adverts. The original Sony advert consisted of thousands of coloured balls as they bounce down the roads of San Francisco. The Tango advert was set in Swansea and featured fruit instead of coloured balls, using the same production style and the same music track. It also copies almost exactly the moment from the Bravia advert when a frog leaps out from a drainpipe. It parodies Sony's slogan 'Colour.like.no.other' with 'Refreshment like no other', finishing the advert with "It's clear when you've been Tango'd"

A parody website was also set up alongside the advert, purporting to be the "Swansea North Residents Association". According to the website, the filming of the advert: left large amounts of fruit matter across the streets, caused damage to property, scared wildlife and residents, and was unaccompanied by financial compensation. Visitors can sign a petition and view the original advert in a variety of formats.

The whois information for the Swansea North Residents Association domain reveals it was registered in February 2006 by 'CHI advertising', which represents the marketing company behind Tango drinks.