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Procter & Gamble must be pleased with the success of Sunny Delight,

which Marketing’s Biggest Brands survey last week revealed was the

fastest-growing grocery brand launch of the 1990s. Whether it’s pleased

with the hostile reaction to its brand’s success is another matter.

The national press were quick to follow up the survey, which reported

that Sunny Delight now has UK sales of pounds 160m. But the response

from both the press and the food pressure groups was fiercely critical

of how the brand is being marketed.

The P&G product came under fire for an advertising and retail campaign

that seeks to position it as a healthy, vitamin-filled drink, despite

the fact that it contains only 5% fruit juice and its main ingredients

are water and sucrose.

’Unreal thing takes on the real thing’, declared The Guardian, comparing

it with Coca-Cola. ’Money Delight’, said The Mirror, which also ran an

article headed ’Sweet Nothing’, by its medical correspondent, Jill

Palmer, who warned: ’Sunny Delight was launched as a healthy alternative

to fizzy favourites, but in fact is mainly sugar and water.’

The Daily Mail was probably the most cutting, with a headline that

screamed ’Health row as ’sugary water’ sales hit pounds 160m’. The Food

Commission was also wheeled out to give its views, and declared: ’The

image comes across as a very healthy, fresh fruit-juice drink, and mums

think it’s good for their children. In fact, it is full of thickeners,

colourings and flavourings to make it look like fruit juice, when it’s

just a very sugary drink. Basically it’s just a marketing con.’

Items also appeared on Channel 5 News, the BBC’s Watchdog and Radio 4,

all carrying attacks on the brand. To P&G’s credit it came out fighting

in defence of its successful product, declaring that it was marketing

the ’vitamins-enriched beverage’ honestly, and that the issue was being

drummed up largely by the Food Commission, rather than by consumers.

P&G’s director of public affairs, Gary Cunningham, also said that one of

the key claims being levelled against it as a ’con’ was quite simply

wrong. ’People have said that we put Sunny Delight in chillers, when it

doesn’t need to be stocked there. In fact,that is how it needs to be

stored to stop vitamin levels declining.’ Cunningham says P&G will make

no changes to packaging, promotion, or point-of-sale, following the

protest.

But by producing a drinks brand that so clearly positions itself among

the company of fresh juice drinks, P&G surely knew the trouble it was

letting itself in for. It may be too extreme to say it is conning the

public, but the associations are very strong, no matter what it may say

on the label.

The flak Sunny Delight has attracted is another reminder of the

difficulties involved in marketing products aimed at children. Sunny

Delight is clearly a huge marketing success, but P&G’s bid to market it

as a healthier alternative to rival soft drinks has certainly created

some confusion over what type of drink it is.

It will be interesting to see if the adverse publicity around the drink

impacts on its performance in Biggest Brands next year.