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Britvic Tango

Brand of the day: Britvic

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By Rebecca Stewart, Trends Editor

July 23, 2015 | 3 min read

Welcome to Brand of the Day, where we pick the brand making headlines and explain what you need to know about why it's in the news.

Brtivic is our brand of the day.

The soda giant is set to make a splash in Brazil, with the £114m acquisition of drinks company Empresa Brasileira de Bebidas e Alimentos (Ebba).

Ebba is best known for its Maguary and Dafruta brands, whilst Britvic owns 21 brands in total including Robinsons.

Based in Chelmsford and originally named the ​British Vitamin Products Company, the juice maker was founded in the mid-nineteenth century.

It was snapped up by a division of Allied Breweries in 1968, and switched to its current name three years later.

It took hold of Tango and Corona from Beechams in the late eighties, and bought the UK franchise for Pepsi and 7 Up in the same year.

Its marketing for Tango caused a bit of a stir in the early 90s.

In 2000, an ad for the orange fizzy pop which depicted a gang of orange-haired men reducing an overweight youth to tears by shouting at him through a megaphone was criticised by the Independent Television Commission.

And four years later, the ASA banned a TV spot which showed a young man wrapped in a carpet filled with oranges rolling down a hill and smashing into a tree, on the grounds that children would copy the stunt.

Britvic agreed to merge to merge with AG Barr (maker of Scottish drink Irn Bru) in the summer of 2012, but the deal collapsed the following year when the companies could not agree on terms. The failed agreement cost Barr $5m

Three years ago, the firm had to inssue an apology when its Fruit Shoot drink, designed to appeal to children, was recalled after a six-year old boy was said to have choked on the plastic bottle cap.

Britvic’s chief executive, Simon Litherland, said that today's acquisition was a "great opportunity" to buy a high-quality business.

Brazil is currently the sixth-largest soft drinks market in the world with sales growing at nearly 14 per cent ever year.

Britvic Tango

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