Tropical Fantasy
Tropical Fantasy is an inexpensive soft-drink, originally from Brooklyn, New York. Its low price of 50¢ per 20-ounce bottle led to its success in the 1990s. Tropical Fantasy was initially popular in inner city areas, especially those with dense African-American and Hispanic populations. The company did not employ large marketing campaigns and used simple store displays and low prices to sell its drinks. This made the product almost invisible to consumers not living in areas where the beverages were sold.
Tropical Fantasy is bottled by a small family-owned soft-drink manufacturer called Brooklyn Bottling Group, which has bottled seltzers since 1936. In 1990, with its debut of the Tropical Fantasy line, the soft-drinks became an overnight success. It now bottles over $2 million each month in sales.
In April 1991 rumors began circulating in black neighborhoods that the beverage was laced with a secret ingredient that would sterilize black men. The rumors claimed that the Ku Klux Klan was actually bottling the product and using the low price to attract poor blacks. Later that year the rumor spread rapidly and provoked violence in many city neighborhoods. Attacks occurred on delivery trucks and storekeepers who stocked Tropical Fantasy.
Due to these rumors and rising suspicions, sales of the beverage plummeted by 70%.
Brooklyn Bottling employees were sent into affected areas to distribute 'truth flyers' in attempt to dispel the rumor. Eventually, the New York City Health Department declared the soda safe. In a final attempt to save Tropical Fantasy's tainted reputation, NYC mayor David Dinkins, who was also African American, drank a bottle of Tropical Fantasy on television and attested to its safety. Eventually, sales of Tropical Fantasy began to pick up, and the story of sperm-killing comestibles began to latch on to other local products.
By mid June 1991 the attacks had stopped and the sales had rebounded, but the dark rumors about Tropical Fantasy were not forgotten.
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