COCKING A SNOOK AT THE CATEGORY

It takes guts to cock a snook at tradition, but more than that it sometimes takes caliber. Of course one isn’t talking of celebrating the social iconoclast, but instead brands that belong to a category and yet choose to hoodwink the codes of that very category.

Now.. now before this turns longwinded and circuitous, let’s go down that old familiar path of raining down a few examples.

Let’s just go down memory lane into those adolescent years in college when the forbidden had to necessarily be tried, albeit a bit gingerly. The first puff of a cigarette (tee totallers, the next know your brand may be more up your street for this one is in a bit of a tipsy mood!), the early sips on a glass of darkened liquid indulgence punning and cunningly labeled ‘triple X’.

You see when boys eagerly declare their much awaited manhood, they do so quite conclusively. Then two top shirt buttons open and forested chests (so what if the forests are still scanty, at least they have arrived!) are displayed. Oiled hair in school (brylcreamed for some) give way to a breezy devil may care carelessness that is carefully nurtured. To add to this, the voice is made to growl out of the pit of the stomach so that no one misses noticing the ‘man’ who spoke. It is precisely at this adolescent junction when males school themselves in the art of ‘swagger’, the attitude of a ‘drawl’ and develop that sense of worrying maleness that forever threatens to go out of hand. ‘Macho’ is more a destination, than a word now.

But all this was then and not now because it is the natural scheme of things that every attitude that characterizes youth has an expiry date after which new characteristics take birth. Oh those were the days of the Malboro man when air conditioning was few and far between. Manhood inexplicably entailed the rawness of sun burn and not the spray of deo (that was girly in those days of fierce intent); the ruddiness of the outdoors not ‘shapely’ muscles in sanitized gyms; of straightforward accents that gave away the place you came from and not the consistent accents of the place you wish to head to – oh yeah! Those were days of no mineral water, of helmetless pillion riding, of eating street food from vendors who scratched themselves with brazen gusto. And speaking of mineral water, we find our way back to the subject of brands that hoodwink the category.

Well in the early days, it was rum that was drunk by the ‘men’ in the hostel when the warden wasn’t watching. It was dark enough for he-men to drink and dark enough for tea totallars to fear. The darkness was as befitting of the spirit as the spirit was of its choice of patrons. That kept the few manly types within its fold and equally kept many others outside its fold. No brand mattered then so long as it was triple X. Nothing interim or half hearted or halfbaked could shake the bastion of triple X, or Old Monk (don't even ask the market share, it was truly obscene). For sure there were those who tried but not boldly enough. Shaw Wallace launched ‘Calypso’ a Jamaican song and dance version of rum, but fought shy of 'cocking a snook at the category'. We know the outcome don't we.

It was only years later when Bacardi entered the lives of youth and there was singing and dancing and boys and girls. The ‘men’ had all retired into fleeting flights of nostalgia. Now there were couples instead. The rum was incidental and was drowned under the lilting strains of music. The sea, the beach, the boats, the fun and the frolic and most of all the rum was clean, for it was white. Black was now dead! Bacardi cocked a snook at the very category codes of rum, at the heart of which was a black liquid for dark men with darkened lives giving each other macho company. The access barriers of the category suddenly melted with the cool influx of white rum but did not quite stop there. Soon the rum became even more incidental. From something that took itself so seriously, it turned into a ‘breezer’ and its monotone split into a brilliant array of colours. From macho it turned happy and gay! It even blurred gender lines to appeal to both or in fact to all! It became inclusive and tolerant with the times. It’s appeal widened. It was much like a young one born into royalty, cocking a snook at tradition and thereby appealing to the hoi polloi.

It was finally possible to remain a tea totaller and still have rum!

Well, Triple X is still alive and kicking. It’s psychographic pride has been blunted. It now sits low down on the demographic axis of affordability. It’s drunk by those who can afford less than whiskey and far less than scotch.

But few remember the price of Bacardi and even fewer, care. For how on earth can you ever price those moments of joy, fun and music, those times that tell you ‘be what you want to be, taking things the way they come’.

So this was just one lonely example.

Now try and scratch the top story a wee bit and try and recall some more examples of those brands who have the guts and the caliber to cock a snook at the category. And write back.

Soon enough, I shall write again this time, celebrating tea totallers!