April 20th, 2004
108259461143497049
Oh My Gooooood!
That’s pronounced “Oh my good”, with extra extension on the “uh”. This is the new advertising campaign for my camp favorite of all Japanese beverages, Gokuri. For those not familiar with the wonder that is produced by Suntory, Gokuri is a pulpy grapefruit beverage which is quite refreshing and slightly sour. Of special note, it is the first Japanese “cuisine” I consumed when I came here. Mystified by the seemingly endless variety of non-soda products in vending machines (which seem to outnumber trees six to one), I first chose Gokuri for its excellent conveyance color combination (blue and orange), and the fact is supposedly contained grapefruit (my favorite of all fruits). I fell instantly in love with this slim, chilled, Asian beauty, and enjoyed at least one daily, usually at breakfast with Marie biscuits and yogurt for a solid three months at the lab. At the apex of my heavenly citrus relationship came Gokuri Man, a fellow in shiny blue spandex who would run about the country and rescue thirsty, dehydrated families from boring picnics with armfuls of Gokuri. More recently, there was a series of charming, doctored photographs of various small animals chugging the refreshing beverage.
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Unfortunately, it seems that Suntory felt Gokuri needed a marketing push to elevate its status from a cult favorite. This has resulted in not only a distinctly less kisch (and more trendy) logo, but they felt the need to alter the flavor from the traditional pure yellow grapefruit, to the sweeter “pink grapefruit mix”. I suppose this is to appeal to that large swath of consumers that enjoy mocha and candy throat drops. As this shift of merchandising strikes down one of the few bellwethers for sour/bitter flavor loving individuals like myself, I did what any other fervent beverage fanatic would do and shot out of work and stormed every super market and convenience store within a half mile radius and bought every last remaining bottle of the old recipe. This was an interesting experiment in advertising/product placement synchronization, as the Gokuri website proports strongly that April twentieth is the date of change, and already every convenience store carried only the new bottles. It was only the last vestiges of legacy product scoured from the slower-to-be-hip grocery stores that I was able to muster. In the end, I managed two and a half cases, which are all marked good until about September. So, one last hurrah before the curtain falls. I’m sure I’ll hold onto at least one bottle unopened for several years out of prosperity, perhaps I could get Gokuri Man to sign it someday. But for now, I’ll enjoy a couple more slow mornings with an old friend and some biscuits n’ yogurt.
Like an army of willing clones, or raptor DNA samples.
To experience the fresh, new look of Gokuri, check out the commercials here and here.
