Sunny D recruits ’90s icons for ‘New Face of Sunny D’ campaign after recipe change

• Millennials are loving SunnyD’s new campaign featuring two nostalgic icons 
• READ MORE: SunnyD fans go wild as brand releases alcoholic beverage

British icons of the 90s, Shaun WIlliamson and Dave Benson Phillips, are battling it out to be the new face of SunnyD UK.

In a new marketing strategy to play into the nostaliga of the popular drink for millennials, the two familiar faces have been plastered across the brand’s social media.

As ‘Shauny D’ and ‘Sunny Dave,’ they’ve both appeared in multiple videos and pictures on SunnyD UK’s social media, in an attempt to get the public to vote for them as the new mascot. 

Entertainer and TV presenter Dave Benson Phillips is best known for presenting The Fun Song Factory between 1944-1999 and then PlayHouse Disney until 2006, while Shaun Williamson is of course known by soap fans as Barry Evans in EastEnders.

Sunny D, which was originall launched as Sunny D, has never quite recovered from the controversy over its initial high sugar content, despite being reformulated in 2003 and 2009 to include more real fruit juice and less sugar. 

British icons of the 90’s, Shaun WIlliamson and Dave Benson Phillips, are battling it out to be the new face of SunnyD UK

SunnyD became one of Britain’s top ten best selling brands within a year of its launch in 1999, however sales plummeted after a campaign by health and consumer groups alarmed by its high sugar but low juice content. 

Earlier this year, it was announced there would be an alcoholic vodka seltzer version of the drink hitting stores in the US this year – although it was never produced in the UK.

Now, in an attempt to get Brits drinking the sugary concoction again with the hashtag #It’sStillAThing, they’ve recruited iconic faces to help them out.

In a video of Dave on the brands Instagram page, he says ‘Did your parents stop you drinking SunnyD as a child?

‘My name is Dave Benson Phillips and I will personally gunge your parents as payback – just tag your parents and I’ll come around and gunge them’.

The comedic sketch continued ‘I would like to apologise publicly to those people I hurt by my master plan of gunging people who do not like SunnyD. I got carried away I’m sorry.’

Meanwhile, in another clip Shaun joked ‘Millennials, well they can’t afford to buy a house can they with all those avocados they bought. 

‘No one really cares about their feelings and they’re beginning to realise they’re not cool anymore.

Now, in an attempt to get Brits drinking the sugary concoction again with the hashtag #It’sStillAThing, they’ve recruited iconic faces to help them out

In a video of Dave on the brands Instagram page, he says ‘Did your parents stop you drinking SunnyD as a child?’

As ‘Shauny D’ and ‘Sunny Dave,’ they’ve both appeared in multiple videos and pictures on SunnyD UK’s social media , in an attempt to get the public to vote for them as the new mascot

SunnyD became one of Britain’s top ten best selling brands within a year of its launch in 1999, however sales plummeted after a campaign by health and consumer groups alarmed by its high sugar but low juice content

In a clip on the brands Instagram page, Shaun joked ‘Millennials, well they can’t afford to buy a house can they with all those avocados they bought’

‘So let’s take them back to their glory days. Paying £2.99 for a ringtone, watching yours truly on the box and watching the nectar of the Gods.’ 

He added ‘Two icons of the 90’s together, stronger. Think bacon and eggs, Bonnie and Clyde, fish and chips’.

Users commented ‘I’d give Shauny D a try’ and ‘Love it, great ad’.

Another praised the campaign, writing ‘I generally hate advertising with a passion but I did like this one. Well done.’

Someone else wrote ‘First Instagram ad I have watched all the way through!’

Sunny Delight first burst onto the British market in the nineties with a series of TV commercials featuring happy youngsters in sun-lit kitchens enjoying the drink with the slogan ‘the great stuff kids go for’.

Critics dismissed this as a cynical attempt to exploit children’s ‘pester power’ over their parents, but it worked and the brand becamse a best-seller within a year. 

The product was stocked in super-market chiller cabinets – although this was unnecessary – which helped give the impression that it was a healthy fruit juice.

In fact, it contained just 5 per cent juice, plus a whopping 10 per cent sugar.

Sales in its launch year totalled £48.3million.

The campaign against Sunny Delight was spearheaded by the Health Education Authority, which urged parents to view it as a sugar-sweetened fruit drink rather than a juice.

The watchdog advised limiting consumption to mealtimes and diluting the product for under fives to protect their teeth.

After the campaign, the brand was relaunched in the UK in 2009 as SunnyD.

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