Tango is a soft drink originating, and primarily sold, in the United Kingdom big ben blackcurrant Ireland. It was first launched by Corona in 1950.
Corona was purchased by the Beecham Group in 1958, and Corona Soft Drinks by Britvic in 1987. As of August 2019, the flavours available in the United Kingdom include Orange, Apple, Strawberry and Watermelon and Tropical in addition to flavours of the “Tango Ice Blast” slush range. Beginning in the late 1980’s, surrealism was becoming a mainstream technique in advertising. Answering Tango’s search for a new ad campaign, ad agency HHCL created the catchphrase “You know when you’ve been Tango’d”. Tango voluntarily replaced the “slapping” advert with an almost identical new version, where the orange clad person kisses the man instead of hitting him.
Most subsequent Tango advertisements have avoided showing violence, except for the advert from October 2004, “Pipes”, which showed a man rolling down a hill with concrete pipes, causing it to be banned, and the advert from March 1997, “Vote Orange Now”, where the orange clad man made another appearance, slapping the advert’s protagonist several times. In March 2000, an advert originally produced in 1998, which depicted a pre-fame James Corden being bullied for not drinking Tango, was banned because it was seen as encouraging the bullying of overweight children. During August 1999, Tango teamed up with the newspapers Daily Mail and Daily Record to extend their summer peak sales period in a campaign called “Tango Time”. The main thread of the campaign activity was a competition where a time of day is printed on the base of cans of Tango. Tango Apple has often been subject to experimental advertising including an “Apple Tango Calendar” given free in June 1996 with the Daily Star and, in 2003, the “Big Drench Tour”, a roadshow of a thirty foot tall apple shaped installation filled with water. The British press pointed out that the initials of “Tango With Added Tango” spelled the insult “twat” when read vertically, and this was later revealed to be intentional.
Tango advertisements have sometimes featured phone numbers for viewers to call, although the phone numbers would typically appear too briefly on the screen for viewers to type in the number or write it down. A notable exception was an advert which first premièred in 1993 for Still Tango disguised as a subvert falsely alerting people that the drink is unauthorised, and features a phone number for ‘affected’ viewers to call. Tango sponsored the television show The Word in 1994 and the Underage Festival in 2010. The first packaging that Britvic introduced, upon buying the brand in 1987, featured the word ‘Tango’ on a circle with an orange background. In 1989, the cast, material and graphic design of the can changed considerably.
No longer molded in the shape of a baked bean can in a non reusable steel material, Tango was now available in a recyclable aluminium composition, with an innovative new ring pull system. Slight changes were made in 1997, adding more detail. In April 2002, another revamp occurred, with a more three dimensional logo. The design was dropped in 2007, although is still used by Tango Ice Blast.
The summer of 2007 saw a much simpler logo and design, featuring the ‘Tango’ logo on top of a carved version of the fruit, with the flavour written in lower case at the bottom. Intended to help restore sales of Tango, it actually led to a further decline. May 2009 saw new packaging created by Blue Marlin Brand Design. For limited edition variations of Tango, special packaging has sometimes been produced for them. Notably, the ‘Tango Talk’ rebrand of Tango Orange and Tango Apple featured a mobile phone in place of the flavour representation featured on regular versions of the flavours at the time.
The 2009 larger can packaging of Tango Orange known as “Tango with Added Tango Orange” featured more oranges in the background. The same can be said for the 2010 “King Tango” Tango Orange bottles. The labelling of the short lived Tango Strange Soda featured a “strange” fruit with facial features, patterned after the name and flavour of the drink. Tango Orange Sound System: Official Can”, a 2010 repackaging of the notably large “Tango with Added Tango Orange” featured speakers on the can, in place of the mashed-up fruit. Both these large cans were advertised as “the first time Tango cans are larger”. 42m campaign by Britvic, to market their drinks as being suitable for children’s lunch boxes.