Fruitopia

Fruitopia is a fruit flavoured, non-carbonated drink introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 1994 and targeted at teens and young adults. According to New York Times business reports, it was invented as part of a push by Coca-Cola to capitalize on the success of Snapple and other flavored tea drinks.

The most common flavor of this drink is "Strawberry Passion Awareness." This flavor is available at drink fountains as well as McDonald's as Coca-Cola pushed this drink to market in many places. Fruitopia vending machines have also appeared in some schools and college campuses, in addition to, or as a replacement to soda. After Fruitopia was introduced in the United States, TIME magazine named it one of the Top 10 New Products of 1994.

Other flavors included The Grape Beyond, Tangerine Wavelength, Citrus Excursion, Fruit Integration, Pink Lemonade Euphoria, Lemonade Love & Hope, Raspberry Psychic Lemonade, and Beachside Blast. These flavors were available in the United States. A much wider array of flavors was available in the UK. In a drive to remake the brand and remarket it as more relevant to Generation X, Coca-Cola dropped several flavors in 1996 and added and renamed others.

Fruitopia had rather unusual commercials despite the simplicity of the product behind them. They featured animation using imagery of fruit arrayed in colorful, spinning kaleidoscope patterns. This was accompanied by idealistic aphorisms reminiscent of hippie poetry of the 1960s, such as might be found in advertisements which ran in underground press newspapers of the period. Background music on several of the ads was provided by The Muffs, Kate Bush, and the Cocteau Twins also contributed.

"There is a beautiful person
"living inside you!"
"Please share a Raspberry Psychic Lemonade"
"with him or her."

Fruitopia was discontinued by Coca-Cola in the United States in 2001, being replaced by the Minute Maid moniker. A similar situation occurred by PepsiCo, who replaced their own Fruitopia clone, Fruit Works, with the Tropicana moniker. However, Fruitopia Strawberry Passion Awareness is still available in the United States (branded as Minute Maid) in McDonalds fountain machines nationwide.

Fruitopia juice is still available in Canada in a wide variety of flavours, and has recently been released into Australia. The ingredients in Canadian and former American Fruitopia drinks are not the same and they also taste(d) different; the United States version has chemicals/preservatives added. In 2007, Coca-Cola GmbH Germany released a new fruit juice line under the name "Fruitopia by Minute Maid".

Fruitopia's trial in Greece

In 1997, Greek writer Eugene Trivizas won the first stage of a legal battle against Coca-Cola, preventing the multinational company from registering in Greece the title of his TV serial and comic-strip books "Fruitopia" as a trademark for soft drinks. The court decided that Coca-Cola has unlawfully appropriated his intellectual property. Coca-Cola appealed against the decision and, in December 1999, the relevant court of appeal ruled once again in his favour prohibiting the use of his intellectual property as a trademark for soft drinks. Dr. Trivizas plans to pursue his case beyond Greece.

Popular Culture

In "The Simpsons" episode "Lisa's Sax," a TV ad says: "Well sir, we got a scorcher today! And to cool off, nothing beats Fruitopia! The iced tea brewed by hippies but distributed by a heartless, multi-national corporation!" In the later episode "They Saved Lisa's Brain", guest star Stephen Hawking says "I wanted to see your utopia, but now I see it is more of a Fruitopia."

A Fruitopia machine was briefly visible in the Sacred Heart Hospital cafeteria at the end of the April 10, 2008 episode of NBC's Scrubs.A Fruitopia machine is visible in the hallway of a Camden College dorm in the movie The Rules of Attraction, after character Lauren returns following the bathtub suicide scene.A Fruitopia machine is briefly visible in the office in the 1996 film Independence Day.

"The Venture Brothers" episode aired on June 8, 2008, The Doctor Is Sin, makes reference to Fruitopia.

ee also

* Snapple
* OK Soda

External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E3DD1039F93AA35757C0A960958260 Coca-Cola Changes Some Fruitopia Flavors]
* [http://www.minute-maid.de Fruitopia website from Germany]