Soda flavors take over convenience stores for summer

Written by: Rebecca Milner on July 9, 2008 at 9:30 pm | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends | 1 Comment

Mango and watermelon were strong contenders, but as the flood of summer-themed convenience store products begins to peak soda is the obvious winner in this season’s flavor war.

The item that first caught our attention was Suntory’s Ice Cream Soda carbonated beverage scheduled for a July 1st release. The package has a trendy retro soda fountain look and the drink promises a refreshing blend of ice cream melted in soda.

Next we came across press releases for Tohato’s cream soda and coffee float flavored caramel corn snack, the latest flavor in the popular series (available from June 16th) and Cadbury Japan’s soda flavored Bubblicious chewing gum (available from July 17th).

So we headed to the convenience store to see what else we could find and discovered that soda was indeed the most common flavor in all major convenience stores!

For example Akagi’s new Vanilla Soda Bar Melon Chocolate (exclusive to Family Mart) and Gari Gari Kun Soda popcicles (actually a perennial favorite that has been around for awhile).

Also Dippin’ Dots Cool Soda flavor (available since April) and fizzy drink Calpis bottle ice.

And Glico’s new Papico White Sour bottle ice, Tuwish’s ramune and cola flavored gummy candies, and UHA Mikakuto’s similarly flavored G Fresh soda and cola gummies.

Besides the obvious refreshing qualities of soda on a hot summer day, soda flavored products channel the retro appeal of ramune, the old-fashioned lemon-lime glass-bottled carbonated drink. Not all of these products are new, some of them, like the bottle ices, are decades old but are experiencing a revival following the general retro boom that is still going strong.

Tags: beverages, Confections, Convenience Stores, FMGC, Retro, soda
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends, Press coverage

Shava Dava, Uchi Gochi, drink names explained

Written by: Rebecca Milner on June 26, 2008 at 1:28 am | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends | No Comments

Some of our favorite convenience store products have some pretty funny names, like “Crunky” chocolate and “Pocky” biscuits. In many cases however these names are not just catchy, but evocative of a sound: “Crunky,” the sound of the crispy chocolate being crunched and “Pocky,” the sound of the crisp biscuit stick being snapped in two.

Another example is “shava dava,” a jazzy sound reminiscent of scatting in music and the name of a new beverage from Kirin.

The sparkling beverage is flavored with grapefruit juice and vinegar (vinegar in small doses diluted is a common health drink in Japan). According to the press release, the name “Shava Dava” is meant to allude to the sound of the drink’s fizzing bubbles and give the product a cool image to appeal to concerning adult customers.

Shava Dava is an example of the repetitive onomotopeia common in the Japanese language. Words like “goro goro” (the sound of lying about the house) and “kira kira” (the sound of sparkling) are two oft-heard examples.

Mercian’s latest Uchi Gochi wine series is a play on words created to sound like the examples above (and thus appeal to Japanese ears) but is actually a condensed version of the phrase “uchi gohan gochisou,” which translates roughly to “eat at home.”

The wine series, which includes two reds and a white, is designed to suit traditional home-cooked meals. Meanwhile, the website is full of advice for how to pair wine and foods, like matching the smooth, slightly sweet red with a traditional favorite like ginger grilled pork.

While the Japanese have been regularly drinking wine out for years, the idea of drinking at home, especially because wine can be a tough match for many traditional dishes, is still relatively uncommon.

Tags: beverages, FMGC, Kirin, Mercien, Wine
Category: Fashion & Lifestyle Trends, Marketing & Ad Trends
Other categories: Technology & Gadget Trends, Press coverage