May 15, 2004

I drink Blackcurrant Tango - come and get me! Remember the legendary Blackcurrant Tango advert on UK screens for all too short a time? Ray Gardner, the letter from Sebastian, the boxing ring on the cliffs of Dover, the harrier jump jets? Here it is, in all its glory.

I've been searching for this for years. It's my favourite advert ever. I hope it brings you as much joy as it has brought me... To direct download and keep it forever, right click and save here.

posted by ralphyk 20 years ago
  • What.The.Fuck.Batman? Perhaps a bit more exposition on this advert and its vast importance to Poms, its background, etc, would be of some use? Is this the same Sebastian that broke my best fucking fountain pen in the changing rooms of form 2a back in 1984? Please explain.
  • I can't quite believe I just downloaded that.
  • Sorry, thought more people would have heard of this - basically, Tango (fizzy drinks company in UK) have a history of making bizarre, controversial, and just plain weird adverts. This one, however, just topped them all. I only ever saw it once, I presume it got pulled immediately - very few people I know actually saw it, so it can't have been out for very long. It then passed into legend, people whispered "did you SEE that bloody advert?" in hallways, nobody who saw it quite believed their eyes. The English and the French have always had a bit of a rivalry, to put it mildly. It's more perceived than anything else, but there is definitely something there. This advert plays on all that, and in as offensive a manner as possible, sticks two fingers up to the French, Europeans, and pretty much any foreigners. The funniest thing is just how utterly inappropriate the whole thing is - it's done in an ironic way, but you can almost hear the howls of protest forming. Of course, some people took it literally and thought "yeah! fucking foreigners, who do they think they are?". And you're supposed to, a bit. Sort of. It's difficult to explain. It's just a fabulously offensive advert for a slightly sickly, fizzy blackcurrant drink, and a welcome antidote to the usual half naked women drinking on a beach.
  • Forgot to mention: it's also quite cleverly put together - it's not all one shot, it's a series of shots seamlessly edited together, some bits even have different weather - watch when he goes out into the car park, it's starting to rain, but then magically dries out.
  • Yeah! Hell yeah! That's some 'Murrican style shit with the "come and get me" angle! Man, I haven't wanted a product so much since the Nutrigrain ads!
  • Wow. That's like, the UK version of Molson's I am Canadian campaign. And it makes me want to run out and drink black current tango, and I don't even like black current : ) This is marketting at its best (or worst, depending on how you look at it)
  • Re: I am Canadian, remember the Qu
  • Interesting. So how old is this?
  • We had a localised version of that "I am Canadian" thing blasted at us constantly during the Sydney Olympics. Apparently identity and group membership can come out of a little aluminium tin. Apply as needed.
  • Koant - that is hilarious. So, do the French have a chest pounding nationalistic ad for Orangina? Mmmm....orangina
  • Interesting. So how old is this? It dates from 1996. It was not on the screens for long as it is clearly OTT in terms of xenophobia. It got tonnes of coverage in the press and people still talk about it, so it was a successful ad. For the un-initiated, there are a number of other Tango ads on this site: www.absolutelyandy.com/tvadverts/ Scroll down a bit, they're all grouped together in an orange table about three-quarters of the way down. I liked the apple seduction series best.
  • > So, do the French have a chest pounding nationalistic ad for Orangina? Not that i am aware of (but I left France 4 years ago). I'm told there is a Belgium one though (not for Orangina).