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History of Orange-Crush S.A.E.: The 1930s flavor that survived the postwar era

The trajectory of Orange-Crush S.A.E. is one of the most interesting and least known chapters in the Spanish soft drink industry. Although the original brand was born in the United States in 1916, the Spanish subsidiary was founded in Barcelona on December 24, 1928, right on Christmas Eve, with an initial capital of 500,000 pesetas. It was not a simple distributor, but a company with 100% Spanish capital, management, and raw materials that purchased the formula rights to produce it locally.

Their expansion strategy was highly intelligent: the local concession model. Instead of centralizing everything, they sold bottling and distribution licenses to small local soda manufacturers throughout Spain. For instance, records show that in July 1929 they signed their contract number 10 with the Ferrer family in Roses (Girona). They provided the concentrate, the characteristic ribbed glass bottles, and the official caps in exchange for exclusivity in the area. Thus, during the Second Republic era, the soda (which people simply called "Orange") was already a staple on terraces and summer festivals.

The company's great merit was resisting after the Civil War. During the postwar period and the harsh years of the Francoist autarky, American brands disappeared due to a lack of foreign currency and internal blockades. However, Orange-Crush S.A.E. avoided closure by defending before the ministries that they were a national company that sourced its fruit from the Spanish Levant and provided local employment. They went through turbulent times in the 1940s; in fact, in 1940 and 1942 they had to publish official notices in the BOE (State Official Gazette) reporting the theft of a large batch of their original shares (a total of 362 securities), a reflection of the administrative and heritage chaos left by the war.

From the 50s and 60s onwards, the brand continued to be very strong, competing head-to-head with Mirinda and later with Fanta. However, the market changed drastically. Large American multinationals entered with advertising budgets that were impossible for the veteran Barcelona firm to match. The activity of Orange-Crush S.A.E. gradually faded until the mid-1980s. One of its last documentary traces is a call for a General Shareholders' Meeting held at its headquarters at 184 Balmes Street in Barcelona on December 27, 1985, definitively closing a business that lasted nearly sixty years.

The founders and owners: The company was firmly controlled by a family saga from the Catalan bourgeoisie: the Soler Serra family. The founding leadership included brothers Ángel Soler Serra (President), Pedro Soler Serra (Secretary), Luis Soler Serra (Managing Director), and Ernesto Soler Serra (Board Member). Alongside them operated the manager, Enrique Videgaín Córdova. Keeping family control and not diluting the capital into foreign hands was what saved their business life in the 1940s, as the dictatorship authorities could not seize or ban a real Spanish company.

Curiosities: In the 1930s, Orange Crush based its advertising on the hygiene of its crown cap and the purity of natural orange juice compared to competitors' chemical syrups. Their ribbed bottles (designed so they wouldn't slip from wet or icy hands) are highly prized collector's items today. Regarding the stolen shares in 1940, evidence suggests they were looted during the war's chaos or factory seizures in Barcelona, forcing the founders to litigate afterward to prove ownership.

The end of the company: The closure in the mid-80s was due to a perfect storm: Spain's upcoming entry into the European Economic Community (1986) forced market openness, Coca-Cola (Fanta) and PepsiCo (Mirinda/Kas) built massive exclusive distribution networks, and the small local bottlers that sustained Orange Crush went bankrupt or were absorbed. The Balmes Street headquarters had become a mere administrative office, and the business model could not keep up with 1980s aggressive marketing, leading the heirs to an orderly liquidation.

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Crush es un refresco de naranja o naranjada que apareció en 1916 en Estados Unidos, cuando el químico Clayton J. Powel creó el proceso para mezclar sus ingredientes.

La Orange Crush (naranjada "Crush") fue una de las marcas internacionales claves de Schweppes Holdings Limited y cuenta una versión light de bajas calorías. Al tradicional sabor de naranja se le han ido sumando una serie de otros sabores (algunos de ellos con variantes dietéticas), siendo particularmente variadas las opciones en Estados Unidos y Canadá. Actualmente, aparte de Estados Unidos y Canadá, también se la comercializa en Argentina, Chile, Colombia, México, Guatemala, Panamá, Paraguay,Perú y Uruguay (tiempo atrás también fue vendida en Costa Rica, Bolivia, Venezuela y Kuwait); el nombre de la marca se origina en la onomatopeya (en inglés) del ruido al destapar esta gaseosa.1 También fue comercializado en España hasta mediados de la década de los ochenta.

Será por razones culturales, de ego o de inseguridad que con la llegada de un nuevo directivo de mercadotecnia las cosas suelen cambiar radicalmente alrededor de las marcas: Surge la “necesidad” de un cambio al logotipo, al empaque, de nuevas formulaciones, sabores, colores o variedades. La necesidad de satanizar el trabajo previo y dejar huella puede ser de pronto irresponsable y generar en ocasiones daños al “equity” de una marca.

Es similar a cuando un nuevo presidente o gobernador toma el poder, desconoce logros anteriores, desecha estrategias previas y propone un nuevo rumbo.

Lo entiendo en la política, pero en los negocios representa un serio imparto a los valores de una marca.
Un estudio de Decode Marketing con Brandgym demuestra que la llegada de un nuevo CMO o Director de Mercadotecnia a una empresa genera cambios significativos en sus marcas más importantes, y en la mayoría de los casos provoca daños irreparables.

Más del 80% de los directivos encuestados consideran a los valores de marca como altamente importantes para el crecimiento, sin embargo 54% de éstos no conoce las herramientas adecuadas para medir su desempeño. Peor aún, solo el 24% de los directivos evaluados efectúan cambios estratégicos a las marcas basados en datos duros o cuantitativos.

En mi experiencia personal existe un caso triste y representativo de estos drásticos virajes provocados por cambios estructurales. En 1996 tuve la oportunidad de manejar la marca Orange Crush, cuya posición en el sector de refrescos de naranja era importante. Crush era reconocido como el refresco “taquero”, con alta presencia en dichos centros de consumo y alto reconocimiento entre un consumidor adulto. Su color rojo y una botella muy característica representaban su “uniqueness” en el mercado.

Ante la llegada de una nueva directriz estratégica, el producto fue sometido a una profunda transformación sin la debida investigación previa, Se le cambió la fórmula, la botella y hasta el logotipo. El argumento fue la búsqueda de un consumidor más joven, a través de un empaque más moderno, un color más natural y un sabor más Ad-Hoc. El resultado fue una estrepitosa caída en ventas y participación de mercado, y un rechazo del consumidor en las taquerías del país, su canal más importante.

Años pasaron y por supuesto un nuevo CMO llegó, quién sugirió regresar a las bases del producto, bajo el concepto de la moda “retro”. Entonces el producto regresó a su botella, color y fórmula original, pero demasiado tarde.

Adicionalmente a lo anterior, el consumidor de hoy tiene mejor memoria (y tiene a Google) con lo que los cambios estratégicos a los valores y registros de marca deberán hacerse con más responsabilidad.

La llegada de un nuevo liderazgo en la empresa puede obedecer a una necesidad o requerimiento de la misma, y quizás el cambio será consecuencia lógica de una nueva gestión. Sin embargo no debe orientarse necesariamente en lo obvio o en lo más delicado. Un nuevo directivo puede dejar huella a través de influir en las ventas, canales de distribución, mayor dinamismo en la gestión promocional, nuevos productos y negocios o simplemente en recuperar el ROI de sus actividades. Dejemos lo más visible para los políticos, las carreteras, grandes obras y nuevas frases de campaña. Las organizaciones deberán cuidar más las posibles transformaciones a los aspectos más estratégicos de sus marcas, para evitar errores reversibles como el de Orange Crush.

Crush (beverage)

Crush

Type Soft drink

Manufacturer Dr Pepper Snapple Group

Country of origin United States

Introduced 1916

Related products Fanta, Nehi, Orange Slice, Sunkist

Crush is a soft drink brand that originated as Ward's Orange Crush (see orange soda), which was invented by Clayton J. Powel of Los Angeles, California in 1916.[1][2]. Originally, Orange Crush included orange pulp in the bottles, giving it a "fresh squeezed" illusion even though the pulp was added rather than remaining from squeezed oranges. Pulp has not been in the bottles for decades.

Logo for Ward's Orange Crush, c. 1921

The Crush brand and trademark are currently owned by Dr Pepper Snapple Group of Plano, Texas. Crush is also popular in Canada, where it is distributed by subsidiary Canada Dry Mott's. It is distributed by various Pepsi bottlers, the biggest being The Pepsi Bottling Group Canada.

In some countries of Latin America the Crush brand is distributed by the Coca-Cola Company, using the same colors and bottles as Fanta.

Several flavors (Grape, Cream Soda, Lime, Orange) are available at most stores throughout North America; however, others are distributed only within small markets. Pineapple Crush and Birch Beer Crush, for instance, is relatively easy to obtain in both can and single serving bottle in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and in Fort McMurray, Alberta. This will soon change, as the Pepsi Bottling Group has recently announced they would begin distributing Crush in a majority of their territory in the United States,[3] followed less than a month later by PepsiAmericas' announcement that they would follow suit in most of their territory.[4] The changeover in distribution became official in late January and early February 2009, with the Pepsi bottlers taking over the Crush rights in those areas and the bottling rights to Hawaiian Punch (which the Pepsi bottlers in those areas had handled prior to 2009) going to the bottlers of Dr Pepper and 7 Up.

Other countries in which Crush is sold are Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Lebanon, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Syria, Uruguay and at one time Costa Rica, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Crush was purchased by Procter & Gamble in 1980 (with the exception of the Canadian rights, which were purchased in 1984). Procter & Gamble only manufactured "bottler's base," which was a concentrate consisting of flavor and color. 1 milliliter of bottler's base was combined with syrup and carbonated water to create a 12 ounce bottle of Crush. In 1989, Cadbury Schweppes acquired Crush USA from Procter & Gamble Co. Cadbury Schweppes spun off its US beverage business as Dr Pepper Snapple Group in 2008.

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Crush es un refresco de naranja o naranjada que apareció en 1916 en Estados Unidos, cuando el químico Clayton J. Powel creó el proceso para mezclar sus ingredientes.

La triste historia de Orange Crush

Additional information regarding the American parent company:

“El Orange Crush” que fabrico un gomero de Agulo en las torres de Taco

Crush (beverage)