I’m going to let you guys in on a little packaging saga I have been agonizing over for the past few years. First, let me preface by saying that I have a soft spot for any and all things Canadian. I don’t know why, I just do. Their accents and maple-leaf pennies just make my world dandy. So imagine how pleased I was when this appeared on shelves whilst I was in high school:
How cute! What refreshing, simple packaging! And I loved the drink itself, the subtle flavoring and over-the-top bubbliness made me think, “this is a grown-up pop”. Even the 2-liters were glass. But then after a while, this happened:
Hmmm…this is really different, and you’ve lost a lot of the ‘clearness’, but I guess I am ok with this, the wrapping is pretty fun, and I suppose this has a wider audience than the first. It’s youthful, even kicky. I continue on with my life, occasionally remembering CC exists and swinging over to the minimart to grab a delicious blackberry one, until one day:
OK Clearly Canadian, I know you’re not a super popular soda, but c’mon now. Where is that ol’ Canadian quirkiness I loved so much? But still I make excuses for CC, thinking, “Oh, but those extruded leaves are nice. The elongated oval behind “Cherry” really isn’t that awful, I guess, and the fruit photos are alright. At least I still have my classy glass bottles!” and so I accepted this new, unnecessary redesign. And then this weekend, at the grocery, I have a CC craving (as I often do in the warmer months), so I mosey on over to the case where these things are stored, and I am greeted by this:
OMFG. NO NO NO NO. Is this Sunny D? Swirly-logo Sunkist? A Squeeze-It? I can barely stand to look at it. To pile on the hurt, they’ve switched over to the seemingly cheapest plastic bottles available, and replaced the juicy fruit photos with clipart. I cry inside as I rifle through the cooler, eventually finding an old glass bottle left behind in the back (YES!), and I think that whoever is doing this to CC must be stopped. All traces of the classy, quirky beverage I fell in love with have been utterly destroyed, my heart breaks.