I am the guy
that called up 7up and asked them if they would turn it upside
down the 7 on the bottle so it would look like this
and they did
and it was sold in Florida where I sometimes go.......
Here are
some facts:
7 UP
flips
by Abram D. Sauer
February 9, 2004 issue
“Turn that frown
upside-down” may be a good strategy for battling personal
gloom, but what if the gloom is less psychosomatic and more
economic? Does the axiom, taken literally, still hold true?
Beverage maker 7 UP has been trying to find out with its upside
down branding effort that almost certainly has to be a first.
Does 7 UP-side-down spell success?
The true origin of the 7 UP
name has never been fully disclosed; rumors include that creator
C.L. Grigg saw it branded on a cow, the drink contains seven
flavors, and the name is somehow related to a game of dice. One
thing is certain, if 7 UP had retained its original name,
Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, this profile would never
have existed.
By all accounts, 7 UP should
never have made it past its first year. Introduced two weeks
before the stock market crash in 1929, the drink was more
expensive than the hundreds of other similar drinks in the
market. And, as noted, the brand’s original name inspires
consumption of a more suspicious than conspicuous nature.
But by the 1940s 7 UP was the
third bestselling soft drink in America. A cherry flavored
version was introduced in the 80s alongside the already-existing
diet version. 7 UP’s “no caffeine” claims also
boosted the brand during the health-crazed 80s when confusion
about diet and nutrition reigned. After a brief rest under the
Philip Morris flag, 7 UP merged with Dr. Pepper and both were
later added to London-based giant Cadbury Schweppes’ stable.
The one-word definition of 7
UP’s strength can be traced back to 1967, that’s the
year the brand hit upon a brilliant little bit of strategy,
declaring itself the “Uncola.” This differentiation
perfectly fit the beverage’s brand image, and, as a bonus,
was completely true. With Coca-Cola and Pepsi as the dominant
soft drink brands, 7 UP offered a great alternative to brown
sugar water.
Today, however, if 7 UP were a
therapy patient, it would be diagnosed with an acute personality
disorder with schizophrenic tendencies most likely owing to
paranoia. In the face of fierce competition from Sprite and
others, 7 UP launched the “Make 7 UP Yours” campaign in
1999. The double entendre-based strategy (meant to emphasize the
“Up Yours”) no doubt comes from some genius having told
company leaders that vulgar fart humor is the way to a
tween’s pocketbook. It is a far cry from the tasteful and
clever “Uncola” tagline of years past.
Granted, it is hard to fault 7
UP given the fact that within the beverage market, from beer to
soda to water (even water!), there seems to exist the sentiment
that sincerity is a sucker’s game and snarky excessiveness
and in-your-face impertinence is the way to woo consumers. The
only exceptions seem to be fruit juice, which regularly features
children actually genuinely enjoying its product instead of
pouring it all over their faces while they make out with two
Swedish bikini team members plummeting from an airplane without a
parachute, and Coca-Cola, which is so iconic now as to be above
the fray.
The bigger problem is 7
UP’s new twin product dnL. Introduced in 2003, dnL is 7 UP
turned upside down, lowercased and squished together without a
space. Upon first seeing the new logo on a bottle or can, one
immediately thinks that there must have been an error at the
canning plant. And indeed, many people may buy one because they
think it might be a valuable collector’s item one day. Well,
it may be, but only for the same reasons that cans of “New
Coke” are collector’s items.
Much like 7 UP, dnL is also
featured in brazen ads, one featuring what appears to be a
leprechaun in need of anger management counseling. Consulting the
dnL website to find out what the difference in the two products
is one finds: “dnL is from the makers of 7 UP, but it is
everything 7 UP isn’t. Take 7 UP and flip it upside down and
inside out, you get a green beverage in a clear bottle with a
bold full flavor and a kick of caffeine.”
The obvious argument, apparent
to anyone, is that if dnL is “bold” and it is
everything that 7 UP is not – flipped, inverted, etc. –
then that means that 7 UP is timid, or, in more generous terms,
subtle. But if that is true, then the “Make 7 Up Yours”
campaign is way out of place in differentiating these two
products. Both 7 UP and dnL are being marketed in the same
“X-treme” way. This leads to the unmistakable
observation that maybe there really is no difference between the
products, except for a neat gimmick where the logo itself was
reversed. And in case 7 UP hadn’t noted KFC’s very
brief “healthy eating” campaign, a brand strategy
founded on a gimmick is doomed. Nobody likes to hear the same
joke over and over again, especially when it was only moderately
funny the first time.
DnL in and of itself is not a
bad idea as part of a larger campaign to promote the 7 UP brand.
But as the name of not only a separate product, but one that also
seems to be so similarly promoted, it just comes too close to the
original; like having an Elvis impersonator open for Elvis
himself.
Abram D. Sauer, former
columnist for The China Daily and co-founder of
Chopstickfactory.com, lives in New York and welcomes freelance
opportunities.
dnL was the name of a soft drink
produced by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages in the United States. It was part of the 7 Up family of soft
drinks, and was introduced in September 2002. It was launched in
the same year as other attempts to extend soft drink brand names
with new iterations, including Pepsi Blue, Dr Pepper Red Fusion and Vanilla Coke.
It had arguably been poorly marketed, and, while it remained
listed as an official product of the company in late 2005, it was
scheduled to be discontinued for 2006 in favor of the "7 Up
Plus" brand.
The product's name came from
the fact that the "dnL" logo is the "7 Up" logo turned
upside-down. The product itself was also, in many ways, the polar
opposite of 7 Up: while 7 Up is caffeine-free, colorless, and comes in a green
bottle, dnL contained caffeine and was an unusual shade of green
(vaguely similar to the green of 7 Up's bottle) in a clear
bottle. And while 7 Up has a fairly standard lemon-lime flavor,
the "citrus" flavor of dnL is that of lime-lemon,
(primarily lime flavored with a hint of lemon).
The maker of 7 UP unveiled its
new upside down version of the soft drink, an energy drink called
dnL, at a visitor attraction in Orlando this week.
Billed as the
"upside-down" 7 UP and targeted to teenagers and young
adults, dnL is bright green in color and contains caffeine and a
blend of different fruit flavors.
The product will be rolled out
to around 60 per cent of the US from early November, initially
available in clear 20-ounce bottles. Beginning in January,
distribution will be expanded to the rest of the country.
Take-home packaging, including 12-packs and 2-liters, are set to
roll out in April 2003.
Jim Trebilcock, senior vice
president of marketing at Dr Pepper/Seven Up, said: "Beginning
next week, consumers in cities throughout the country will begin
seeing things from a different perspective - a flipped
perspective - when they taste dnL."
At the event in Orlando, dnL,
which is part of the soft drink portfolio of Texas-based Dr
Pepper/Seven Up, the largest division of London-based beverage
and confectionery firm Cadbury Schweppes, used a dnL "Flip
It" vehicle and acrobatic gymnasts to deliver its message
and promote the product.
Dr Pepper/Seven Up is the largest producer of non-cola
soft drinks in North America, with about 16 per cent of the
carbonated soft drink market. Other brands include Dr Pepper, 7
UP, A&W Root Beer, Canada Dry, Sunkist, Schweppes, Squirt and
Hawaiian Punch, as well as the RC Cola and Slush Puppie brands.
