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Editorial Twisted Twisters 4/9/02 If you hurry you may still be able to buy a collector's bottle of Tropicana Twisters Orange Cranberry as there are a few bottles left on the shelf alongside the newly named Orange Cranberry Clash. The Twisters' orange and cranberry blend is similar to the other Twister juices which all have corn syrup as their second ingredient after water. The change in names, aimed at a younger trendy consumer, may indicate that Tropicana, owned by Pepsi, does not intend their Twister line to compete with the more traditional blends on the juice aisle. Now all of the Twister juices on the shelf in our local supermarket sport a bewildering array of new names from the sublime to the ridiculous. However, the orange cranberry is the only one with a name that literally means that the ingredients don't go together. The target market probably associates clash with the name of the punk band, The Clash. To them bad is good, and clashing is fun and exciting, as in "Clash of the Titans." I'm sure the experts who came up with these names are well paid, and that they had a good time trying to outdo each other for the dubious honor of having Tropicana pick the names they divined would jump off the labels and grab the consumer's attention. For whatever it's worth, my being far too old to even get a job as a janitor in an advertising agency, here's my take on the other names. Sobriety is a bore. For those too young to drink or who are disinclined to indulge in controlled substances, Apple Berry Blackout suggests an alcoholic stupor while Blue Raspberry Rush merely signifies a state of euphoria. I suppose a cynic may say that Cherry Raspberry Rampage is "aimed" at the market of disgruntled postal workers with severe impulse control problems while Tropical Fruit Fury is for those with somewhat better controlled anger disorder. But there are a half million web pages on Google when you search the word rampage and most of them are names of bands, video games or sports teams. Plymouth popularized the name Fury, so that's hardly new. Kiwi Crush Combustion will suit a mixed bag of pyromaniacs, arsonists and fire fighters. Passionfruit Eruption goes after a true niche market of volcanologists. For fans of the fantasy genre as well as Dungeons and Dragons aficionados, there's Wild Strawberry Dragonfruit. I like the sound of Kenetic Kiwi Strawberry, although frankly I doubt "kenetic" is in the working vocabulary of many twen-teens. With all these quirky names, Twister's Mango Tangerine Mambo, Orange Strawberry Banana Burst and Ruby Red Tangerine Extreme seem positively pedestrian. A few of the blends listed on the Tropicana website weren't in the supermarket. Perhaps they are waiting their new names. I'd offer the following for consideration, available for a small fee from Stressline's advertising division (yes, we have one, click here):
.... which goes to show why nobody is beating down my door to work at their agency. |
Cranberry Apple Argyle - the
"sock it to me" juice