Lemon & Paeroa

Lemon & Paeroa, often shortened to L&P, is a sweet, lemon-flavoured soft drink manufactured in New Zealand. It is considered Kiwiana,[1] and was traditionally made by combining lemon juice with naturally carbonated mineral water from the town of Paeroa. Today, it is manufactured by multi-national Coca-Cola. The origin date of the drink is uncertain, but the brand estimates 1907.

In the township of Paeroa, the origin place of the drink, there is a 7 m tall Lemon & Paeroa bottle statue. It is one of the most photographed locations in the country, and is also considered a New Zealand icon.

History

Originally, Lemon & Paeroa used naturally carbonated water from a spring in the town of Paeroa. The spring is located near the Ohinemuri and Waihou rivers. The land at the spring was originally used to service gold mines, and was a cow paddock when the spring was discovered. Locals frequently visited the spring following its discovery to drink the water. This was a time before anyone had thought of commercialising it.[2]

Branding and packaging

In 1982–1983, two-litre bottles were released for L&P, up from the previous maximum of 1.25 litres.[21]

The brand was redesigned in 2005, changing the label to a "retro" style. After advertising marking the rebrand, the new branding was rolled out three months later in stores so that people would recognise the new bottle designs.[22] In 2012 the branding was redesigned by Dow Design with the intention of making it look more up to date and in line with the younger generation.[23] This included changing the cream coloured lid to a yellow one.[24] The branding was changed again in 2016. It included a logo change and new bottle shapes, allowing for better differentiation of the various L&P flavours.[25]

In 2022 Coca-Cola announced that they were considering changing the plastic on the bottles from brown to clear, which would make recycling of the bottle easier. A similar change had already been made with Sprite bottles. Critics including Hauraki District Mayor Toby Adams have mentioned that because the brown bottle is iconic, people may have a hard time supporting the change. Adams said that if the reason of change (recycling) was given to consumers, they would be more likely to accept it. When asked if he thought the colour change would affect tourist numbers to the 7 m L&P statue in Paeroa, Adams said he believed tourists are attracted to it because it is a large and famous bottle, not because of its colour.[26]

Summer cans

The summer cans released in October 2018 incorrectly spelt Cook Strait as "Cook Straight". After the first production run the typo was discovered and corrected, but the cans with the spelling error were still put on sale. Head of marketing at University of Auckland, Bodo Lang and brand strategist of University of Waikato, Korey Rubenstein have expressed the possibility that this was a deliberate marketing move rather than a mistake.[27]

The 2023 edition, the eighth year of the summer cans, was the first year that the cans included both English and Māori words.[28]

Marketing

An instrumental piece written for a Lemon & Paeroa advertisement won the writer, Mike Harvey, the Clio Award in 1978 for the best musical soundtrack in a commercial.[45] In late 1987, a promotional music video for Lemon & Paeroa was made by prominent music artists under the name "80 in the Shade". It is based on the 1960s Motown song Heatwave, and the video was filmed in an L&P factory. In 1988 it was named the country's best commercial in the Listener Film and Television Awards.[46] A long-running 1990s television advertisement for Lemon & Paeroa, featuring the Swingers song "Counting the Beat" and the slogan "World famous in New Zealand", was shot at various locations around Paeroa including the Lemon & Paeroa statue.[47] Starting in the early 2000s, there was an advertising campaign encouraging people to not get caught drinking anything other than L&P. In the two years that this campaign ran, sales grew by 30%, which was higher than the soft drink industry overall.[22]

At the time of the 2005 rebranding there was a $1.25 million advertising campaign that started on 27 February which changed the slogan from "World famous in New Zealand" to "World famous in New Zealand since ages ago".[22] The campaign mocked cringeworthy parts of the recent past, featuring 1970s and 1980s imagery such as stubbies, speedos, and the phrase "bring back the mullet". The campaign started three months before new bottles were introduced in stores so that people would recognise the new branding.[22]

In 2014 Lemon & Paeroa created a "3D pop-out billboard" in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. The billboards had free gifts which could be detached, such as sandals, jandals, and towels.[48] A Snapchat campaign took place in 2015, titled the "Trickshot Challenge". People would buy a limited edition can labelled with "Shot Bro Trickshot Challenge", which had one of four unique instructions showing how to use the can to perform a trickshot. Contestants would then tag Lemon & Paeroa on Snapchat.[49]

Lemon & Paeroa launched a non-TV "Backyard Cricket" campaign. It featured friends and family playing cricket using unconventional gear, such as beer crates as wickets and tennis balls for bowling. The campaign creative said that the goal of the advertisements was to align Lemon & Paeroa with New Zealand pastimes, and that "backyard cricket is something every Kiwi can relate to". Similar use of local icons was used again in a 2017 campaign. It was named "On the lamb", where sheep drank Lemon & Paeroa, escaped the paddock, and then participated in iconic small town New Zealand pastimes such as playing arcade games, visiting the local Four Square, and having a swim at the beach, before returning back to a Māori farmer.

Lemon & Paeroa launched an advertisement in 2019 that featured zombies in a post-apocalyptic city. The Advertising Standards Authority had received 40 complaints about the advertisement by November 2019. Complainants described it as "frightening" and "disgusting", and some complained that the advertisement had inappropriate timing, running before 7pm. The Authority did not uphold the complaints, but the advertisement was later rescheduled to play after 7pm.[50]

In 2021 Lemon & Paeroa launched a campaign named "Space Manu". It started with a man in space, dressed in a space suit, who jumps from a platform to free fall to the ground, stripping down to his shorts, and eventually landing in a pool where he does a cannonball dive or manu.[51][52] In 2023 Lemon & Paeroa started Manu Applied Sciences Aotearoa (MASA) which had a logo with similar appearance to the one of NASA. A manu L&P swimsuit was created, featuring an advertisement in outer space. The creative director of the campaign said that it was inspired by comments on their 2021 space advertisement. The swimsuit was made to be practical for doing the manu.[53]

"World Famous in New Zealand"

The "World Famous in New Zealand" slogan was created in 1993 by Saatchi & Saatchi for Lemon and Paeroa.[24][54] The lead creative of the campaign said that the campaign was "very refreshing at a time when lots of brands were striving to mimic overseas trends. It was one of the first campaigns to truly embrace Kiwi quirks instead of shying away from them". The advertising campaign where the phrase was used would playfully mock aspects of Paeroa, such as by saying "it ain't famous for its [surf, Hollywood mansions, harbour bridge]". The advertisement then cut to a group of people in a car in front of the Lemon & Paeroa bottle statue, and described Paeroa with "But, it is famous!".[47] The advertisement ran for over a decade, and was perceived as a classic.[54] Now the phrase has entered everyday speech, referring to objects that are loved by locals.[54]

type	Soft drink
manufacturer	Coca-Cola Europacific Partners
origin	Paeroa, New Zealand
introduced	c. 1907
colour	Pale, light yellow
variants	Sugar Free, Sour, Dry Ginger Beer, Chilli & Lime (limited edition)

History

Branding and packaging

Summer cans

Flavours and variations

Attractions

Big Lemon & Paeroa bottle

Lemon & Paeroa Café

Marketing

"World Famous in New Zealand"

See also

References