Originally published on LinkedIn on May 27, 2026
This morning, I saw an online ad for Fanta, a syrupy fruit-flavored soda, typically fluorescent orange. My first thought was disbelief, thinking it was no longer available. However, it’s being paired with action figures and the tagline, “Wanta Fanta? Come Get It.”
It got me thinking.
While car styles evolve, fashion comes and goes, and electronics are seemingly outdated in months, carbonated beverages are kinda’ consistent. Brown is either Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, or root beer. Clear is Sprite. Ghastly green is Mountain Dew. And in a variety of colors and flavors is Fanta.
Six brands have nearly 60% of market share. The other 40% is spread across a wide variety of brands and unimaginable variation of flavors, which are constantly changing from the palatable to the vile like Jones Soda’s Turkey and Gravy soda, Lester’s Fixins Black Olive, Pickle, and Enchilada sodas, or Avery’s Alien Snot Kiwi Blue Raspberry, Dog Drool Orange Lemon, and Kitty Piddle sodas.
Back to Fanta, which is an interesting story considering its origin and propagation across the globe with over two hundred flavors worldwide. It was developed in 1940 by Coca-Cola Deutschland as an alternative to Coca-Cola when trade embargoes to Nazi Germany made it difficult to get the syrup.
The resulting concoction—made with sugar beet, whey, and apple pomace—was named Fanta, the first part of Fantasize (Fantasie in German). Fifteen years later, the popular orange flavor of Fanta was developed in Italy. Today,
Today, Fanta is available in orange, crimson sour cherry, grape, peach, pineapple, piña colada, and berry in the United States and numerous variations elsewhere, including elderflower and lemon (shokata) in Easter Europe, strawberry in Algeria, guaraná in Brazil, grape-berry in Sri Lanka, and fruit twist in the United Kingdom.
It’s astonishing that Fanta is nearly 90 years old and continues to be re-envisioned, revitalized, and re-introduced in the same form factors, an aluminum can, glass or plastic bottle. There are relatively few products that have stood the test of time and can be molded by marketers to engage new audiences and maintain the loyalty of existing ones.
Note: All incomplete sentences, grammatical mishaps, and bizarre thought patterns were made by a human. The images were borrowed from the Internet. And the author may have had a sip of orange Fanta when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
Scribbles 
Leave a comment