Mirinda

Mirinda

Type	Orange drink
Manufacturer	PepsiCo
Country of origin	Spain
Introduced	~1960
Related products	Fanta Pepsi
Website	Official website

Mirinda is a brand of soft drink originally created in Spain in 1959, with global distribution.

It is available in fruit varieties including orange, citrus, grapefruit, apple, strawberry, raspberry, pineapple, pomegranate, banana, passionfruit, lemon, hibiscus, guarana, tangerine, watermelon and grape flavors as well as tamarind. It is part of a beverage area often referred to as the flavor segment, comprising carbonated and non-carbonated fruit-flavored beverages. The orange flavor of Mirinda now represents the majority of Mirinda sales worldwide following a major repositioning of the brand towards that flavor in the early 1990s.

Mirinda has been owned by PepsiCo since 1970 ^[1] and is primarily commercialized outside United States. It competes with Coca-Cola's Fanta and Dr Pepper's Orange Crush or Sunkist brands, with flavour brands localized to individual countries. As with most soft drinks, Mirinda is available in multiple formulations of flavour, carbonation and sweetener depending on the taste of individual markets.

History

Mirinda was originally produced in Spain. It became available in the United States in late 2003 in bilingual packaging, and initially sold at a reduced price, presumably to become a competitor against Coke's Fanta brand. Since 2005, Mirinda flavours have largely been sold under the Tropicana Twister Soda brand in the United States except in Guam, where Pepsi began selling it under the Mirinda brand in 2007 (replacing Chamorro Punch Orange). Pepsico also tried to sell Mirinda in Brazil in late 1996, but the brand was discontinued in 1997 after weak sales, keeping the local brand Sukita under production. In Italy, it is sold under the brand Slam.

Advertising and Recent events

Mirinda campaigns over the years have included the Mirinda Woman campaign in the 1970s.

The Mirinda Craver ads produced by Jim Henson from 1975 to 1978 involved a monster called the Mirinda Craver (performed by Bob Payne and voiced by Allen Swift) craving the Mirinda drinks and will do anything to obtain a Mirinda drink. With the Mirinda Craver being a Live-Hand Muppet, Bob Payne was assisted in performing the Mirinda Craver by Louise Gold, Dave Holman, or Faz Fazakas with either one handling one of the arms of the Mirinda Craver.

A campaign between 1994 and 1996 used the tag-line 'The Taste is in Mirinda' with the Blue Man Group. In some markets, including Mexico, the Blue Man Group campaign re-launched Mirinda away from a multi-flavor positioning to a brand solely focused on the orange flavor. The Blue Man Group campaign showed the Blue Man Group competing to drink orange Mirinda and celebrating a successful drink with an open-mouth exclamation of 'Mirindaaaa'. Also in Mexico, Mirinda launched a campaign with the Pokémon anime series aimed at children with a promotion of gadgets with the characters of the manga series.

Mirinda advertising campaigns over the last fifteen years have been handled by Pepsi's stable of creative agencies, including BBDO and J Walter Thompson.

Mirinda has good sales in India, it uses 'Pagalpanti Bhi Zaruri Hai'('Madness is also Needed' in Hindi) as sales tagline while Indian actress Asin is the brand ambassador of Mirinda in India. It also launched the Mirinda Pagalpanti League campaign in India to connect youths around the nation and share their fun stories on TV Commercials.^[2] Coca Cola's brand Fanta is the major competitor of Mirinda in the Indian markets. The most popular flavours of Mirinda in India include orange and lime.

Mirinda regularly introduces special movie-themed editions in Asia. Recent ones included Batman (blueberry) and Superman (fruit punch). Mirinda has also recently released a new flavor of drinks called Mirinda creme. They come in three flavours: mango, raspberry and lime.

Mirinda is no longer sold in New Zealand, replaced with the introduction of Pepsico's new Mountain Dew range (code red, live wire, pitch black, electro shock & passionfruit frenzy) of similar flavors.

Pepsi and Mirinda (orange flavor) with Arabic labels (bottled, left to right).

As of November 2016, Clendon New World and Countdown supermarkets are bringing back Mirinda with their two flavours raspberry and orange, but is unknown whether if this is only for a limited sale or a permanent official return.

Production

Mirinda's primary formulation is as an artificially flavored beverage; however, it has been produced in the past with a percentage of fruit juice, usually due to local tax benefits tied to non-artificial juice ingredients.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mirinda.