While enjoying my Kosher for Passover Canada Dry ginger ale, I couldn't help but to think back to its old campaign with the tagline, "It's not too sweet."
The song was catchy, though I remember making up my own lyrics to the jingle. The verse had various forms but followed this pattern:
"It's not too sweet/[line that ended in a word that rhymes with sweet]/
Canada Dry Ginger Ale/It's not too sweet."
This was before the impact of high-fructose corn syrup, the start of the revolution that made the American sweet tooth that much sweeter. Artificial sweeteners have played their role; at this point, all we had was saccharin. Aspartame (NutraSweet) didn't get final FDA approval until 1981. And sucralose (Splenda) came along worldwide not too much later, but getting into the U.S. took some time.
The beauty of the Canada Dry ads at the time was that the ginger ale was less sweet versus the marketplace — back then. Imagine the contrast now.
We see more dark chocolate being available and sold. Sugar-based soft drinks have a niche market. But "less sweet" is still out of the mainstream. By definition, Kosher for Passover soft drinks are out of the mainstream.
Imaging a product marketing itself as "not too sweet" in 2013 is rather difficult to conceive. Sweet is cool, awesome, radical. Products need sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial sweeteners to be extra sweet. "Not too sweet" would seem un-American (Canadian?).
While some of these food quests come down to sugar vs. high-fructose corn syrup, honestly, I like these products because they aren't as sweet as mainstream, high-fructose corn syrup dominated foods.
"Really can't be beat [because] It's not too sweet."
Comments