Irn-Bru
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Irn-Bru (pronounced ˈaɪɚn bruː) is a popular caffeinated soft drink in Scotland. It is made by A.G. Barr plc, of Glasgow. Barr's Irn-Bru is available in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Russia, Canada, South Africa, parts of Europe and in some parts of Australia and Singapore.
Irn-Bru is famous for its eccentric bright orange colour (something it shares only with the glucose drink Lucozade). The 'Iron-Brew' produced by other manufacturers is a similar shade, but merely approximates Irn-Bru in taste. The formula for Irn-Bru is a closely guarded secret, known only by two of Barr's board members.[citation needed] As of 1999 it contained 0.002% of ammonium ferric citrate, sugar, flavouring agents (including caffeine and quinine) and colouring (E110, E124). It is advertised as having a slight citrus flavour, but many have differing opinions of the exact taste of Irn-Bru, although one of the key ingredients is said to be barley.
It has long been the most popular soft drink in Scotland, outselling Coca-Cola, but recent fierce competition between the two brands has brought their sales to roughly equal levels (perhaps leaning to Coca-Cola).[1] This success in defending its home market (a feat claimed only by Irn-Bru, South Australia's Farmers Union Iced Coffee, Peru's Inca Kola and Sweden's Julmust) has led to ongoing speculation that Coca-Cola or PepsiCo, Inc. would attempt to buy A.G. Barr.[2]
Irn-Bru's advertising slogan used to be "Made in Scotland from girders", though the closest one can come to substantiating this claim is the 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate listed in the ingredients.
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[edit] Packaging and products
Irn-Bru and other Barr brands including Pineappleade, Cream Soda, Tizer, Red Kola, Barr Cola, and Limeade are still available in refundable glass bottles (AKA Jeggy). The empty bottles can be returned to any shop which sells them, and can usually be exchanged for the deposit of 20 pence.
Irn-Bru and Diet Irn-Bru are available in the following sizes:
- 150ml can
- 330ml can
- 250ml plastic bottle
- 500ml plastic bottle
- 1L plastic bottle
- 1.25L bottle (Australia)
- 2L plastic bottle
- 3L plastic bottle
- 355ml glass bottle (in Canada)
- 750ml glass bottle (refundable)
For restaurants and cafeterias, Irn-Bru syrup is available.
Barr also produce Irn-Bru Bars, chewy, fizzy, bright orange bars which taste very strongly of Irn-Bru. Irn-Bru sorbet is available some speciality ice cream shops in Scotland (e.g. Divitos of Crossgates or Janettas of St Andrews, both in Fife and also S. Luca of Musselburgh).
[edit] Marketing
Irn-Bru's advertising campaigns have always been very different from those of other commercial soft drinks. Until recently, most were variants on the "Made in Scotland from girders" tagline, usually featuring Irn-Bru drinkers becoming unusually strong, durable, or magnetic.
The last two television advertisements based on this slogan were parodies of more "typical" soft drink adverts. One featured a Coca-Cola style montage of happy Irn-Bru drinkers against a feelgood ballad. The other pastiched Pepsi's use of pop singers in their adverts with a fictional heavy metal band. Since the 1990s, different approaches have been used.
Perhaps the best-remembered are the long running series of television and billboard adverts in black-and-white, including the billboard with the grim reaper saying "Don't be scared. You'll still get Irn-Bru on the other side." and the supposed-advert for a cleaning product called "Jef", which consists of a small boy, the actor Murray Alford, in a box, who sucks Irn-Bru stains out of clothes.
A popular advertising campaign launched in 2000 featured eccentric characters and situations. One involved a grandfather (played by actor Robert Wilson) who removed his false teeth to spoil his grandson's interest in his can of Irn-Bru. Another TV advert from this campaign evokes 1950s entertainment. The mother plays the piano, while the father and two children deliver a song which ends with the mother singing: "Even though I used to be a man." A further TV advertisement featured a crippled senior citizen in a motorised wheelchair robbing a local shopping market of a supply of Irn-Bru.
This advertisement originally aired in 2000, but when it was re-aired in 2003, it received seventeen complaints [3] from people who claimed it was offensive to transsexuals. Issue A14 of the Ofcom Advertising Complaints bulletin reports that the children's response to their mother's claim was not in fact offensive. The advertisement was meant to be a joke about changing points of view over time. However, the scene involving the mother shaving at the end of the advertisement was deemed to be potentially offensive to transsexuals, and so it was taken off the air.
Over the years, advertising campaigns for Irn-Bru have caused upset. One billboard featured a woman with the words "4 1/2 inches of pleasure". Another featured a picture of a cow with the slogan "When I'm a burger, I want to be washed down with Irn-Bru". This billboard received over 700 complaints but was cleared by advertisement watchdogs. [1] A billboard which featured a depressed goth was also criticised for inciting violence. [2]
The Irn-Bru 32 (the recent energy drink addition to the Irn - Bru family) advertisement, featuring a stereotypical Glasgow "hardman" dressed as a giant cuckoo in a library was also criticised, with Strathclyde Police appealing for it to be banned for being too aggressive. In answer to these complaints, a tongue-in-cheek redubbed version of the advert, with the cuckoo speaking in a polite Estuary English accent was aired for a short period of time, eventually being replaced by the original. The ad was cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority. [3]
The current marketing campaign for Irn-Bru is known as the "Phenomenal" campaign. Diet Irn-Bru's advertising campaign is currently "Oh Yeah", featuring a hapless lothario called "Raoul" and featuring the song "Oh Yeah" by Yello.
The Christmas 2006 advertising campaign is a parody of the Walking in the Air sequence from The Snowman, featuring the snowman and a boy flying around Scotland. The lyrics to Walking in the Air have been changed to humorous effect.
Irn-Bru have started a marketing campaign aimed at their main target area, Scotland. Prior to the 2006 world cup, Irn-Bru recruited Trinidad and Tobago player, Jason Scotland, to be the face of the product during the world cup period.
An early (and long running) advertising campaign was "The Adventures of Ba-Bru and Sandy" comic. A neon sign featuring Ba-Bru stood outside Glasgow Central railway station for many years, and was only removed in the late 1980s.
[edit] Cultural influence
Irn-Bru is widely reputed to be an excellent cure for hangovers. This claim has some foundation in truth — all caffeinated drinks will soothe headaches to an extent, and sugary drinks will replace lost fluids and sugars.
It is often used as a mixer with alcoholic beverages — mainly vodka and whisky. Indeed, the popular British alcopop WKD was originally launched as an alcoholic equivalent of Irn-Bru. Barr retaliated by launching a drink combining Irn-Bru and Bell's whisky, though this proved to be unpopular and was quickly discontinued. A later attempt came in the form of an official Irn-Bru flavour in the Red Square line-up of vodka-based drinks; this too has been discontinued. There is now an official Irn-Bru WKD flavour.
When McDonald's restaurants first opened for trading in Glasgow they did not serve Irn-Bru. This was seen as an insult by some Scots, and a campaign to correct this oversight was launched. After many of their restaurants were picketed, McDonalds relented and began to stock Irn-Bru alongside their other soft drinks.
There is an urban legend, often heard in Scotland when discussing the drink, that states variously that Irn-Bru is more popular in Russia than it is in Scotland, or that it is more popular than Coca-Cola in Russia. Barr's first venture in Russia, with a Russian company backed by American venture capitalists, failed in August 2001. A second attempt at cracking the Russian market began in June 2002, backed by the Pepsi Bottling Group of Russia. Robin Barr, AG Barr chairman, said of the legend "Maybe I could sit here and hope that it [was more popular than Coke], but Coke was introduced into the Russian marketplace shortly after 1990, so they've been in business for some 12 years now, whereas we only started franchising Irn-Bru in Russia towards the end of 1998."[4]
[edit] Exports and foreign markets
Irn-Bru is currently manufactured in five factories in Russia, and is also manufactured under licence in Canada. Bru and various other Barr products are exported to Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Greece, and Cyprus, as well as parts of Africa and Asia. It is available sporadically in Ireland[citation needed], Belgium and, as of 2005, in Poland.
The legal status of Irn-Bru in the United States is unclear. Several American companies import Irn-Bru, yet it is currently listed as a banned substance by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FDA website[4] lists Irn-Bru and Diet Irn-Bru as containing the banned carcinogenic colouring Ponceau 4R, and Sunset Yellow FCF, which the FDA has to approve on a per-batch basis[5]. One importer, Irn-Bru usa. [6], modifies the drink to conform to FDA requirements.
The Foxon Park company [7] in East Haven, Connecticut has made a dark-brown soft drink called "Iron Brew" for many decades. It seems likely that this product is named for the Scottish original, but the flavour is unrelated.
The food colouring Ponceau 4R is also banned in Norway, and Sunset Yellow FCF is banned in both Norway and Finland, although Irn-Bru can still be purchased in certain Finnish shops specializing in imported goods.
Irn-Bru sold in Canada contains no caffeine, as until recently only dark coloured drinks were permitted to contain caffeine[8]. As a result of this and the omission of quinine the taste is noticeably different, and the restorative effect is almost nil. It is also produced under licence, without caffeine, in Australia.
The now-defunct McKinley/McInlay soft-drink company in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada for many years offered its own non-licensed beverage called "Iron Brew". It was a brown carbonated soft-drink with a fruity cola taste. After the company stopped operations ca. 1990, PepsiCo continued to sell the drink locally as "Cape Breton's I'rn Bru". The less-than-inspired packaging consisted of plainly labelled plastic bottles (black text on a featureless while label) and a disclaimer "Not a source of Iron". As of 2006 this product seems to be very difficult to find, even locally, and may have been phased-out.
The product has been licensed to be made in Spain, where the colour of the can is brighter.
[edit] Irn-Bru 32
Irn-Bru 32 is a brand extension to the Irn-Bru range, and is the first time Barr themselves have marketed an Irn-Bru variation in the functional energy market. Whilst Iron-brew flavoured energy drinks have been available for a while, either in non-alcoholic or alcoholic variations, these beverages have usually been at the value end of the marketing spectrum usually coming in litre bottles. On the other hand, Irn-Bru 32 will be marketed at the top end of the category against other energy drinks such as Red Bull, V and Red Devil. Its name is claimed to come from the 32 secret ingredients of Irn-Bru.[5], although this could also be explained by the fact that the drink contains caffeine in the concentration 32mg/100ml.
[edit] Sponsorship
Irn-Bru is the long-term sponsor of Scottish 3rd division football team Queen's Park F.C., and the club's supporter's call themselves the Irn-Bru Firm. The brand also sponsors the World Burns Club and The Robert Burns World Federation.[6] A thrill ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, the Irn-Bru Revolution, also bears the name of the drink.
[edit] References
- Davidson, Alan. Oxford Companion to Food (1999), "Irn-Bru", p. 407.
- ^ Coke takes sparkle from Irn-Bru. The Scotsman, 30 September 2003.
- ^ Cash reigns supreme amid share buyback spree. Scotland on Sunday, 6 March 2005
- ^ Ofcom response to complaints about Leith Agency advert for Irn-Bru, July 2004.
- ^ Caps off to Irn-Bru for Russian revelation The Edinburgh Evening News, 17 June 2002.
- ^ Barr aims high with ‘mental’ energy drink. The Herald, 17 February 2006.
- ^ http://www.worldburnsclub.com/newsletter/0401/corporate_sponsor.htm
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