The soft drink brand Lilt – famously advertised for its “totally tropical taste” – is being scrapped after 50 years and rebranded. From Tuesday it will be known as Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit, according to its owner the Coca-Cola Company.
The firm stressed the drink’s taste and ingredients would not change. But fans – many of whom appeared to associate Lilt with memories of their youth – took to social media to express their dismay. “Fanta ‘Grapefruit & Pineapple’ … I’m still going to call it Lilt. Just like I still call the chewy sweets in paper Opal Fruits!” tweeted one. “Farewell to Lilt,” tweeted another. “For some completely pointless reason they are rebranding it … Apparently nothing is allowed to be different these days.”
Launched in 1975, Lilt became a household name in the UK partly because of its advertising. One television ad in the late 1980s featured the “Lilt Man”, a parody of a milkman, delivering Lilt in a “Lilt float” on a Caribbean beach. And in the 1990s, the drink was promoted with advertisements featuring two Jamaican women, Blanche Williams and Hazel Palmer, who became known in the media as the “Lilt Ladies”. Some Lilt fans guessed something was afoot when cans were redesigned last year using the Fanta font.
Coca Cola, which owns a host of different soft drink brands around the world, said Lilt would no longer be sold under its current branding from 14 February, while Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit bottles and cans were gradually rolled out across the UK. “Our main priority with this announcement is to reassure Lilt’s loyal fan base that absolutely nothing has changed when it comes to the iconic taste of the drink they know and love,” Fanta brand manager Charlotte Walsham said. “It’s just got itself a new name.” Lilt was only ever sold in a handful of countries other than the UK including Ireland, Gibraltar and the Seychelles.
