7 Up: Encyclopedia - 7 Up

7 Up

7 Up (sometimes spelled Seven Up) is the brand name of a lemon-lime flavored soft drink marketed by Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. (DPSU) in the United States (a unit of Cadbury-Schweppes since 1995). It has been bottled by Britvic in Britain since 1987. Outside the United States, the trademark to 7 Up belongs to PepsiCo. 7 Up, originally named Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda, was concocted in 1929 in Saint Louis, Missouri. It originally contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. Many early soft drinks contained herbal or pharmaceutical ingredients. This was removed in 1950. In 1998 in the first formula change since lithium was removed, 7 Up was flavor-enhanced, with no changes to sugar content or carbonation level.

7 Up has traditionally employed unique advertising tactics. In the 1970s, an advertising campaign dubbed 7 Up the "un-cola," playing on the drink's lack of caffeine. The brand has been represented by mascots including Fido Dido and Cool Spot, a sunglasses-sporting red dot. During the early 1980s, actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder appeared in several commercials. More recent advertising campaigns have challenged consumers with slogans such as "Are you an Un?", portraying 7 Up drinkers as rebellious non-conformists, and "Make 7 Up Yours", implying an aggressive double meaning by separating the slogan into "Make 7" and "Up Yours".

7 Up - History

7 Up was created by Charles Leiper Grigg who launched his company The Howdy Corporation in 1920. His original product was the Howdy Orange drink. After spending over two years testing various formulations, Grigg decided on one that he hoped would meet his goal to create a refreshing and distinctive drink. He would launch the product just two weeks before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. Grigg never explained the origin of the 7 Up name, hence many folklores were born about the name. The most popular one is that Grigg named the soft drink after he saw a cattle brand with the number "7" and the letter "u." Other rumors suggest that the name reflects the drink's seven flavors and carbonation, or that Grigg came up with the name while playing dice.

The 1920s poor economy was just the beginning of the business challenges the product would face. In its early years, there were around 600 lemon-lime beverage brands being sold in the US. 7 Up was able to survive and become the market leader in the category by being one of the first to be nationally distributed as well as being marketed as more healthy than other sodas. Based on the success of the new drink, Grigg renamed his company to The Seven Up Company in 1936.

After establishing the category as more than a niche, major competitors set their sights on it such as The Coca-Cola Company with its Sprite brand introduced in 1961. Sprite would not challenge 7 Up's position seriously until the 1980s when Coke forced its major bottlers then distributing 7 Up to drop the beverage in deference to Sprite. 7 Up then became dependent on Pepsi's bottlers for distribution during the 1990s until PepsiCo launched its own serious entrant in the category with Sierra Mist in 2000. PepsiCo then adopted the previous Coca-Cola tactic and forced its bottlers to give up 7 Up for Sierra Mist which most did by 2003.

The result is that in the United States, DPSU does not have a network of bottlers and distributors, so some of their products are frequently bottled under contract by independent Coca-Cola or Pepsi bottlers, though in some areas independent distributors exist, either by Cadbury-Schweppes, or by individual independent bottling plants. These third-tier bottlers do not have the ability to reach much beyond major supermarket chains, so 7 Up is increasingly difficult to find in smaller stores and vending machines.

PepsiCo continues to distribute 7 Up Internationally, outside of the USA, (Canada), in lieu of Sierra Mist; its status elsewhere is unclear.

7 Up - Brands and Variations

• Sugar-free 7 Up - introduced in 1970, and renamed Diet 7 Up in 1979. The product has gone through a number of reformulations. In the 1980s, Diet 7 Up, like most other diet sodas, made the transition from one artificial sweetener (saccharin) to another (aspartame). In 1998, Diet 7 Up got "flavor enhanced" along with its non-diet counterpart. A few years later, the sweetener acesulfame potassium (also known as ace-K) was added to the mix to help mask the aspartame aftertaste. Finally, in 2005, Diet 7 Up switched to a blend of sucralose (Splenda brand) and ace-K.
• Cherry 7-Up and Diet Cherry 7-Up were introduced in early 1987.
• 7 Up Ice Cola - introduced in 1995 by Pepsi for the International market. It was a clear cola. This was a failure and was discontinued.
• 7 Up Ice - In Europe. Marketed only during the summer as it leaves a cold sensation as an aftertaste.
• 7 Up Raspberry / Clear Raspberry available in Brunei, was also available in Canada for the summer of 1991
• 7 Up Light - available outside the USA, the diet version, available from Pepsi, which holds the International rights.
• 7-Up Gold - During the 1980s, test-marketed in certain areas of the United States. This was a ginger-flavored soda
• 7 Up Orange - Available outside of USA from Pepsi
• 7 Up Tropical / Tropical Splash
• 7 Up Mint - Available in Saudi Arabia in 2002-2003. The flavor was unpopular and was discontinued. Many people likened its flavor to mouth wash.
• 7 Up Plus - A family of soda pops introduced in 2004, supplemented with calcium, vitamin C, real fruit juice and sweetened with Splenda, an artificial sweetener. Touted as a healthy alternative, it contains no caffeine and has only 2 carbs per serving, as well as 5% apple juice, which is uncommon among American market carbonated beverages. The original flavor, Mixed Berry, was released in summer 2004. In 2005, 7Up Plus Cherry and 7Up Plus Island Fruit flavors of 7 Up Plus were released, with the Cherry Plus flavor replacing Diet Cherry 7 up in some markets.

• dnL - Introduced in 2002, the dnL product was created (its name is 7up inverted), with caffeine and green color, to compete with Mountain Dew.
• Citrus 7 and Diet Citrus 7 - contained 7 fruit flavors
• Like Cola and Diet Like Cola

In 2005, 7 Up announced that it would be awarding one lucky customer a free ticket to Space.

7 Up - pH

Some people mistakenly believe that the name 7 Up comes from the fact that its pH is above 7.0 (neutral), and thus does not pose the health hazards other soft drinks do, because of their acidic nature. This is not in fact that case, a simple pH meter test shows that the pH of 7 Up is comparable to any other soft drink, in the case of colas this is around pH 2.5, slightly less acidic than lemon juice^{[citation needed]}.

7 Up - Pop Culture

When The Seven-Ups (1973) was filmed - all of the actors posed in front of a 7-Up delivery truck as part of a publicity stunt for advertising the film.

Seven-Up products appeared in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979).

In 1983, as part of publicity for 7 Up in Mexico, the jingle on the spot was Kim Carnes' hit "Bette Davis Eyes" with the phrase "Alrededor del Mundo Seven Up" ("Around the World Seven Up") and the Pac-Man video game.

In the same year, it was exhibited in Chile, with the slogan "Seven Up, cristalina y refrescante" (Seven Up, crystalline and refreshing), with voice in off by Antonio Vodanovic, host of the famous Song's International Festival of Viña del Mar.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "7 Up", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki