A countercultural icon had lost ground with Gen Z. We needed to reclaim Tango’s place in youth culture and pull the brand apart from its goliath competitor, Fanta.

Research identified that the spirit of rule breaking is suppressed in Gen Z and therefore more attractive than ever. They desire things they shouldn’t, so we positioned Tango as a forbidden fruit. Key to making that credible was the famous intense taste, in turn driving difference in a sanitised category by owning a key attribute.

Simply put, our idea is that Tango has such a bold and intense taste that it should be forbidden.

The ad focuses on a police raid of an illegal Tango lab. The officers surround a house before dramatically bursting in and arresting a group of illegal Tango cooks. There are berries in packets, hidden Tango cans and test tubes containing a purple liquid. Two police officers discuss the raid and conclude that it’s exactly what they feared, “A Tango Dark Berry lab”.

One of the officers samples a drop of the purple tangy liquid and is immediately overcome with the flavour of Tango Dark Berry. He’s completely ‘Tango’d.’ He’s dancing uncontrollably and tries to hold back his moves. It’s erratic, disturbing and even a little bit sexy at times. The other officers watch in fear and shock at his involuntary Tango’d behaviour. The film ends with a secret motherload of Tango Dark Berry being discovered behind a fake wall, to the shock and horror of the Police Sergeant.

With a lean budget we needed our creative to punch above its weight - and it did.

We had our highest ad awareness in four years (+20%), which contributed to an increase in brand consideration (+7%) as well as quality perceptions (+9%).

This got people talking about Tango again, with key uplifts in Word-of-mouth exposure (+5%) and likelihood of recommending to friends (+4%).

The campaign drove uplifts in our key brand image metrics such as taste (+11%), ‘a brand for people like me’ (+16%) and a modern brand (+50%)

This helped contribute to explosive growth during the period, with penetration jumping +2.7%, RSV growth at an incredible 78% and market share lift of 3.8%.

Tango is now the fastest-growing fruit-flavoured carbonated drink in its category and has Fanta clearly in its sights.

[1] Nielsen IQ, Total market, MAT 23.03.2023

[2] YouGov 2022-2023

[3] Kantar Brand Power Study