Coca-Cola rebrands Lilt drinks to Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit

US – The Coca-Cola Company has succeeded in incorporating the tropical beverage brand Lilt into the ‘Fanta family ‘after nearly 50 years of being in the market.

According to the multinational beverage giant, the Lilt brand is no more after changing the brand’s name to Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit. The company has also changed the drink’s packaging and logo.

The drink is famous for offering a “totally tropical taste,” with one well-known 1988 advert showing the “Lilt man” delivering cans on a sun-kissed beach.

“With Lilt’s punchy taste profile and distinctive fruity flavor, it fits perfectly within the expanding Fanta family,” said Charlotte Walsham, Fanta Brand Manager.

“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. It’s still bursting with tangy tropical flavors. It’s just got itself a new name.”

Lilt Zero will also rebrand to Fanta Zero Pineapple & Grapefruit and will be sold in 2L rPET bottles. Fanta Pineapple & Grapefruit is available in 500ml and 2L rPET bottles and 220ml cans.

The Coca-Cola Company said the drink will use the same formula when it becomes Fanta – with the first cans and bottles started appearing in shops on 14 February.

Fizzy drink fans of a certain age have been mourning the loss of the drink. One Twitter user wrote: “When I first came to England as a teenager in the late 80s, Lilt was one of my top 3 English food things with Salt and Vinegar Crisps and Salad Cream. RIP.”

Cleopatra Veloutsou, professor of brand management at the University of Glasgow, said Coca-Cola probably felt the two brand names had a “high degree of similarity” and may have been “cannibalizing” each other’s sales.

The marketing budget for supporting both may no longer have made sense and so Fanta would have been retained as it was the “stronger brand,” she said, adding that other firms were making similar decisions.

Lilt was only ever sold in a handful of countries other than the UK including Ireland, Gibraltar, and the Seychelles.

The rebrand follows a further price increase warning Coca-Cola issued due to the ongoing inflation in nearly all countries globally.

“Inflation is likely to moderate as we go through the year, and therefore we expect the rate in which prices are going to increase will start to moderate and become more normal by the end of the year,” Chief Executive James Quincey said during the recent financial reporting.

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