In the ’90s and 2000s, Tango travelled down a road of bold commercials around the idea, You’ve Been Tangoed. VCCP London and its content creation studio, Girl&Bear, are continuing that journey. It began last year, with a commercial called Bust, that had fun with a police raid busting a Tango Dark Berry lab. Humour, it seems, resonated with the soft drink audience – as well as the promise of “dangerously potent flavour”. Tango’s sales have increased 12.8% since April 2023 and Tango has become the fastest growing fruit flavoured carbs brand among the top five in its category.
Now there’s a new 30-seconds of humour called Warden underlining the “dangerously potent flavour” brand platform, aimed at a Gen Z audience. The campaign breaks category norms of the soft drinks market as Tango taps into its bold heritage, pushing boundaries and behaving mischievously, all while retaining its classic British humour roots.
The commercial features an ‘easter egg’: the Tango lab boss that was arrested in the original ‘Bust’ film is the prisoner that screams: “He’s completely Tango’d!”.
Warden was directed by renowned comedic director, Ben Tonge, who also directed Bust.
Supporting the hero commercial is TikTok content by VCCP’s in-house social team, the Creator Team. The social-first films consist of a series of ‘behind the scenes’ style TikTok videos, all recorded on set, including a native POV film of the warden dancing from the point of view of the other prisoners.
The full campaign includes social content across Instagram and out-of-home (OOH) across the country. Each execution demonstrates Tango’s mischievous brand platform, with OOH displaying a can of Tango Orange front and centre, accompanied by the words, “Give your tongue a citrusy spank” or “Blow your oranges off”, and paid social that reads “Get off your face on flavour”.
mSix&Partners managed media planning and buying, and PR, in-store and sampling was run by by Cirkle, Initials and ID respectively.
Munnawar Chishty, Great Britain marketing director at Tango parent, Britvic, stated, “Tango is back with another mischievous ad, building on our brand’s iconic roots as we continue to break boundaries within the soft drinks category. The Warden campaign is the perfect follow-up to ‘Bust’, driving home the message that above all other competitors, Tango is the go to if you want a dangerously potent flavour.”
George Wait, creative director, at VCCP, added, “Tango is a brand with an incredible advertising heritage, one that’s always an honour and joy to work on. Following on from our campaign launch last year, ‘Warden’ is the latest instalment that we hope takes the series and the brand to a new exciting, and slightly mad place.”
The campaign will run from May 3 until the end August across TV, BVOD, DOOH/OOH, social and TikTok.
