You know when you've been Tango'd

This week’s Pure Slogan of the Week is Tango’s famous “You know when you’ve been Tango’d”.

In 1991, Tango launched a TV campaign introducing the now infamous “Orange Man” advertisement that coined the slogan “You Know When You’ve Been Tango’d”.

It was a massive success at the time increasing Tango’s sales by a third in the UK

Produced by ad agency HHCL, the creator Trevor Robinson said that Tango, still relatively unknown at the time (despite being sold in the UK and Europe since 1950), gave them license to create whatever they liked as long as it would put their brand on the map. 

It certainly did, featuring a large orange man slapping the face of another man when drinking a Tango. It went against the conventions of what advertising was at the time, while also embracing the “lad culture” that was beginning to emerge during the early 1990s. .

It became a massive phenomenon at the time and was voted the third best TV ad of all time in a poll conducted by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times. The Guardian later described Tango as the “original gangster of viral marketing”. However, it was not without controversy, due to reports of injuries when children began copying the events of the advertisement it was later banned and Tango replaced the slap with a kiss.

In recent years, Tango has moved in a different direction with their advertising slogans and none have captured the public attention quite the same way as “You know when you’ve been Tango’d”.

Despite the controversy, we love this iconic ad from the 1990s and its success in capturing one of the fundamental components of any great marketing campaign; memorability & word of mouth.

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