On some level, you can’t help but admire the power of a good marketing campaign. The brightly colored billboard that hangs just right of the freeway takes but a moment for you to see a woman, smiling and holding a drink to plant the idea in your head. You really want to try it at all costs. You would get off the freeway right now, drive to your nearby 7-11 and slam that fridge door open. The coldness consumes your hand, making you one with the drink. As you crack it open, the fizzle of the caffeine escaping makes you eager to taste the flavor below. Oh, how you’re curious to know what the hoopla is.
The bubbles consume your throat, creating sensations as you wait for the taste to properly register. By the time that it’s washed down your throat, you have your answer. Was everything worth it? Was it worth derailing your commute just to try a drink you saw on a billboard? Your boss isn’t going to buy that as an excuse, so you may as well blame traffic.
Of course, this is how marketing campaigns sell the American consumer. To them, we’re a bit on the dimwitted side, willing to break from reason and logic to get their product. Soft drinks are far less problematic than the pots and pans industry, where hundreds of poor housewives fail to cook a meal without their food winding up on a floor. That is of course if they’re not suffering medical concerns that make them see the world as a cartoon. Those poor housewives really deserve a break now and then, so why not give them a drink? Crack open a soda, sit back, and watch the world become this bright phantasm of Douglas Sirk-meets-Fanta Girls vibrancy. You’ll be glad you did.
As I’ve gotten older, there has been more of a draw to this world. I have specifically fallen in love with the limited time flavors that various soft drink companies have put out. I have made an effort to actually try the drink just to know what this great mysterious flavor is.
Last year was a banner moment for a few companies in particular. The most noteworthy came around April 2019. Dr. Pepper had done crossover work with Spider-Man: Far From Home. For reasons that I still don’t understand, they decided that a flavor that perfectly symbolized the narrative was “Dark Berry.” Having seen the film, I couldn’t tell you what Spider-Man bumming around Europe has to do with “Dark Berry,” but once I tried it, I frankly didn’t care. It became my favorite drink for the next two or three months, knowing that the day would come when it would disappear. All I could do was tell my grandchildren about how Dr. Pepper used to have berries in it. Not only berries but DARK ones at that.
If you want to understand the level of obsession I had with it, I will share what happened around August 2019 when the marketing was clearly starting to die down. The convenient locations were starting to discontinue it, and I only stumbled upon it in one place. Even if there’s two or three other Ralph’s nearer to my house, this one was considered high-end enough to carry the special varieties. It’s a place that I’ve put in my notary for future use. The answers have been successful mostly and I drove there for Dr. Pepper Dark Berry up until a forgotten date in September when it was finally gone.
The world felt emptier in part because the competition wasn’t that great. Sure, Dr. Pepper’s variety, in general, has some great flavor. I’ve even got a soft spot for Orange Vanilla Coke (I know, something’s wrong with me). However, the limited time flavors paled in comparison to competitors.
Mountain Dew especially had some disappointing flavors. I will confess that it’s partially because it’s not my favorite. However, that didn’t stop me from trying their two big moves in 2019: Dew-S-A (Red White and Dew would’ve been better) was an Independence Day tie-in mixed with three (Code Red, White Out, and Voltage) flavors to symbolize America’s greatness. It was fine. I can’t recall too much about it other than I probably bought a Dr. Pepper Dark Berry instead. I was more impressed by their Halloween mystery flavor Voo-Dew, which I never quite figured out. I’m not a taste expert, but I will humble brag that I figured out Oreos’ mystery flavors multiple years in a row within minutes of consuming one cookie. I guess soda’s a bit different. Then again, how am I supposed to know what candy corn-flavored Mountain Dew is when the Dew overwhelms the corn?
There’s a bevy of options to choose from beyond that, and I love those visits to modern soda fountains. They’re the ones that carry flavors that have yet to be bottled en masse for the general public. I’m talking about how you could get Coke or Dr. Pepper with a splash of raspberry or lemon, provided that the flavor is even available. You’re tempted to stay there all day, turning more into Augustus Gloop by the minute.
For a while after Mountain Dew Voo-Dew, things seemed quiet. There was no major flavor that crossed my radar. Then it happened. Like anyone who has a mouth to feed around Christmastime, they push a new product that will hopefully get people out there. No, this wasn’t the Sprite Lyme that they had introduced recently. It was the limited time flavor presented by none other than the NBA MVP himself, Mr. LeBron James.
The commercial was the latest in a long line of great Sprite advertising. If one was to compile every commercial from the different soft drink companies, there’s probably none that stands out more. Sprite has the youth vote, at least from my 30-year-old perspective. I still remember their commercial where a basketball player front-flipped into the court as it turned into a pool. I remember some guy grabbing cans as Missy Elliott sang “Supa Dupa Fly” and the cashier saying “Pick a can, man” to advertise the new lyrics design. For a product that I rarely drank, they did an admirable job of making me want it.
This commercial had a novel approach that is marketing 101. In a Claymation technique, LeBron James broke into this family’s house as the savior of the thirsty. A singer parodies “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” as he sings:
I have just one query
Want a Sprite Cranberry?
The answer is clear.
It’s the thirst-thirstiest time of the year.
It was enough to get me excited. Sprite doing a cranberry mix made sense and I could only hope it was better than the barely-there sensation of Sprite Cherry that served as one of their few alternatives. From the moment I saw those commercials every break during NBA games, I knew that I had to try it. I had never seen an ad for Dr. Pepper Dark Berry, Dew-S-A, or Voo-Dew, but I had the optimism that seeing one for this meant that it would be lining the shelves like Christmas lights. I probably could just walk in and the doorman would personally hand me one as a sign of holiday cheer.
The limited-time offer ran until December 31, 2019. I even saw that ad in movie theaters after Christmas was over. It was teasing me, asking me “Want a Sprite Cranberry?” Of course, I did. We all did. The issue was that I was one of many who had an issue.
Apparently, LeBron James needed to personally bust down your door and hand you one. The search for a Sprite Cranberry in Long Beach became a scouting mission for me and my entire family. Every time they went to the grocery store, I asked them to look. It wasn’t just that. I went to several gas stations, often within the same trip, hoping to find something. I went to Targets and Walgreenses, and all I could find was the terrible Sprite Cherry. Meanwhile, I would turn on my TV and LeBron James was there still asking me the same question.
I guess this is what happens when you’re a loud and proud Clippers fan.
The search for Sprite Cranberry became a myth. Did it actually exist? It’s not like I was in some rural city. I was in LeBron James’ current home county of Los Angeles. I could drive to The Staples Center (given traffic) in an hour. There was no reason for a spokesperson to piss off people this close to his base. Still, I began to question if it actually existed. I asked store employees in the aftermath, wondering if I had just missed it. Everyone told me that they never received it.
I began to explore online to see if others had that problem. Apparently, it was true. A lot of people weren’t finding it. Like me, they personally searched through the internet for locations and came up disappointed. No matter where we looked, there was nothing to be accounted for. I guess Sprite had made me the fool. I could try Sprite Lyme all I wanted, but Sprite Cranberry was going to ring in the New Year as one of LeBron James’ greatest cons.
There’s always next year, and maybe we’ll see that same ad. However, I can’t help but look at everything he’s done since and feel like we’re witnessing a corporate conspiracy. Did Sprite Cranberry actually exist? He needed to speak up for his actions. How could he fill everyone with so much disappointment two Christmases in a row? It didn’t make sense. For a company that marketed themselves well above the competition, they were spritzing the bed something fierce.
That is what makes their next big rollout all the more disappointing. By all accounts, Sprite Ginger has another great ad on their hands. The idea of being lead into a secret lab found in the back of a convenience store with some mysterious additional level creates a sense of how exclusive this is. It made me wonder if I just needed to smack the shelves down and take the elevator to the complaints office. Instead, there was something bittersweet about the ad that went beyond the style.
It started with the opening line. The man, looking directly at the camera, says “Oh, you don’t know about Sprite Ginger?”
It’s an echoing battle cry that I’ve long felt about Sprite Cranberry. Did I know about Sprite Cranberry? I’m starting to think that it’s a great hoax. It never existed, performing a Mandala Effect that fooled enough of us into believing it. This man is teasing us, knowing that we don’t know what Sprite Cranberry tasted like and is hanging Sprite Ginger over our head like some weird masochistic tease.
Second off, it’s Sprite Ginger.
As you can guess by this point, my favorite soft drink flavors have tended to be more berry-based. As much as I want to believe that anything plus ginger could be good, I honestly don’t know how appealing it actually is. It actually seems kind of lame for an ad this cool. Sprite Ginger. I know that you need to save your big flavors for the holiday seasons, but come on. This sounds kind of lame. I may try it one day, provided COVID-19 actually stops being a public nuisance. Even then, I kind of don’t care.
I will admit straight-up that I am not a professional taste tester. Everything I discuss is from my own personal curiosity. I am as much drawn to how a product is advertised as well as its actual flavor. With that said, I’m kind of curious to see how I grow in terms of writing about food, as it’s one of the few territories that I have been sheepish to tackle. Will there really be enough to fill 2000 words on any given subject? Could I have written 2000 words on Dr. Pepper Dark Berry about six months ago? I might have come close, but not likely. With that said, I’m used to LeBron James disappointing me, though I wish he didn’t remind me of it a dozen times a day.
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