The euphemistic Claytons still lives

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I stumbled across a bottle of the infamous Claytons in an Ausralian supermarket recently. Appologies to any youngsters who are none the wiser but you would need to be over thirty to remember this one.
This was ‘the drink you had when you weren’t having a drink’.

The beverage originated in London in 1880 and is reputed to be a blend of Kola nuts and citrus essence although like the Coke recipe the makers still aren’t letting on. I’m sure the recipe will remain a well kept secret because I don’t imagine anyone will be beating the doors down to discover how it is made. The drink proved so unpopular that Beecham the New Zealand distributor withdrew it from the market mid 1980’s having spent a small fortune on television advertising.

The TV ads became the talk of the nation but for all the wrong reasons. In fact the term Claytons is still a part of Australian and Kiwi vocab. If something pretends to be something it is not then it is commonly called a ‘Claytons’.
The commercial finished with the line; “The drink you have when you’re not having a drink.”
I guess New Zealand wasn’t ready to become a nation of wowsers or more to the point if it was it didn’t want to draw attention to the fact by being seen with a glass of Claytons in hand.

Why the ad agency had to showcase the conncoction as something it wasn’t, turned out to be a very serious mistake, especially around a product (alcohol) that is so much a part of national folklore. The bottle was even designed with a label to look like a whiskey bottle.

The advert opened with a character (Jack) in a bar obviously enjoying a joke with his mates. We hear him deliver the punch line “…and then this guy says, ‘Now we can all get some sleep’” to which his mates unable to contain themselves burst into laughter. Not only did the drink become a joke but the joke’s punch line also became about as popular as Tui’s ‘Yeah right’.

Unfortunately the joke backfired on Beechams but not before they left our language a little richer for the experience. Claytons reluctantly joined the advertsisng ‘hall of shame’ alongside other notables of the day such as Skoda but that is another story for another day.