I have the Aldi stuff, far cheaper.
And I am perplexed over the strange idea of `blackface`
Do proper Guardian readers jet across to the Caribbean whenever they need a tropical drink, and buy it off of a local (checked for locality) on a street corner?
though I suspect they have canned drinks like everyone else these days, probably some local drink like Coca-cola????
Or am I over thinking this?
Not overthinking, but perhaps not reading the article, and therefore missing the point…
The author Nels Abbey is not taking offence at Lilt. Yes, he writes bemusedly that it’s marketing was a product of a different era and its Caribbean credentials were “fake” dreamt up by marketing executives. He also points out that cringe-worthy advertising was employed, and it has not aged well. But his point is not this.
The point he is making is, in the world of marketing and branding, the fashion for “authenticity” (in deliberate inverted commas) is now where the money is, and the marketing execs have decided that the Lilt brand has fallen foul of this new idol; that is why it has been axed. Not through any new-found cultural sensitivity, but because affecting faux authenticity is where the money is, and brands are only ever money-driven.
In Nels’ own words:
“Lilt and the 2020s couldn’t coexist for long, for authenticity sells, and Lilt could not have been less authentic as a “taste of the tropics” if it wore fake dreadlocks and called itself Bob Marley Brew.
It was the soft drink equivalent of blackface; a liquid echo of a variety show limbo dance. In a social media-driven age where accusations of cultural appropriation can spell doom for a brand and its manufacturer, authenticity seems more and more essential.
Coca-Cola has not revealed why it is pulling the brand, but one thing cannot be denied: when the cash register stops ringing, corporations start moving. Lilt had clearly, to coin a phrase, faded to black. […]
It’s cultural but it’s business. All of this is business. Lilt, a brand once honed and pitched at Blackness and the tropics, has been rebirthed as a subbrand of Fanta – which was originally created to serve a Nazi Germany deprived of Coca-Cola. Go figure!”
And as for; “…proper Guardian readers jet across to the Caribbean whenever they need a tropical drink, and buy it off of a local (checked for locality) on a street corner…” He actually addresses that too. Quote:
“But then, who needs Coke’s totally synthetic tropical these days when you can enter a Caribbean food shop and leave with coconut water (delicious and good for the heart and kidneys), sop juice (high in vitamin C, good for the immune system), Malta (like Supermalt, but less sweet, said to lower cholesterol), sorrel (made from hibiscus calyces, fruits and spices – full of antioxidants) and myriad fruit juices adjacent to actual sun-kissed fruit.
And for those who truly yearn for the carbonated taste of the Caribbean they got from Lilt, scout around: some places sell Ting, Lilt’s fizzy veteran competitor, flavoured with Jamaican grapefruit juice concentrate.”