They say timing is everything in business, so Innocent
Drinks may be regretting a rather bizarre caption on one of its juice bottles.
The company, which is now majority owned by Coca-Cola,
admitted the wording on its advert hailing itself as the official juice of the
London Olympics was “pretty unfortunate” - but says it has nothing to do with
the John Terry racism case splashed across the front pages this week.
On thousands of bottles of its drinks, under the headline
“the juice of champions”, there is a picture of three ducks with the caption “Go
on Terry, shift it mate. The Jamaicans are on our backs here...”
Observers were left scratching their heads about
what it meant, with speculation it may have been a reference to the former
England captain, who yesterday was cleared of a racially aggravated public
order offence against QPR’s Anton Ferdinand, whose father is from the West
Indies.
But apparently the chatty branding was just an
ill-timed coincidence, according to a spokesman for the drinks firm.
“It’s pretty unfortunate, but we’ve actually had
this caption on our juice bottles since before that whole saga,” he said.
Seeing as Terry was first accused of the racist volley of abuse nine
months ago, Innocent were clearly well ahead in their Olympic marketing plans.
Last year, Britain’s biggest smoothie maker was hit
by revelations that it held on to £520,000 pledged to its charitable foundation
in 2007, and had not donated a penny since 2008 - despite printing on bottles
that 10% of its profits went to charity.
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:: Little bit on my new food book 'Down And Out In Padstow And London' in the latest issue of Essential Catering magazine.
