Soft drinks is a hugely competitive marketplace, and the battle between leading flavoured carbonates Fanta and Tango will get even more aggressive as Tango struggles to regain the ground it lost in 2001, while Fanta attempts to take its fantastic sales performance to new heights. As the latest independent sales figures from ACNielsen confirm, Tango plummeted 12%, while Fanta soared 61% (December 29 2001). Coca-Cola Enterprises marketing director Ian Deste says Fanta shot ahead due to a combination of three things. "We had a new ad campaign ­ Why Can't Everything Orange be Fanta ­ which was a huge success. "We introduced Fanta Icy Lemon which was an extremely successful launch. The new variant generated £29m of sales in its first year. Meanwhile sales of Fanta Orange alone grew 15% [ACNielsen 52 w/e Jan 26 2002], demonstrating the incremental impact of Icy Lemon. Lastly, we had renewed focus and investment in terms of promotional programmes with key retail customers." This last point is where Britvic believes Fanta scored heavily, while Tango lost out. Category director Andrew Marsden says: "Tango didn't take part in Computers in Schools with Tesco. Coca-Cola did, featuring Fanta heavily. That changed the nature of the marketplace. Fanta may have done well, but ACNielsen data shows only 6% of its growth last year came from Tango, the rest coming from Sunny Delight and other brands such as Coca-Cola and Lilt." Despite Tango's lacklustre performance, Marsden says consumer loyalty for Tango is 42%, compared to Fanta at 37% [ACNielsen]. "This year we have a number of aggressive youth targeted campaigns that include on-pack activity, instore sampling and trolley advertising. And for impulse, we have a new bottle with a narrow neck and a condensation effect surface to give it a more modern look," says Marsden. CCE, meanwhile, is keeping the pressure on with the introduction of Fruit Twist which Deste says has increased Fanta share by a further 3.4% [ACNielsen] since its February introduction. {{FOCUS SPECIALS }}

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