Alianora-of-toure-on-marsh - Sometimes Nonsense

Why Is AriZona Iced Tea Cheaper Than Water?

The company's enormous vats of iced tea are cheaper than pure water. What kind of sorcery is this?

Despite being a bladder-shattering 23.5 ounces, cans of AriZona iced tea have never wavered from the 99-cent price point introduced shortly after the drink debuted in 1992. It’s even printed on the label as a way of warding off sugar-water price gouging by retailers.

The fact that AriZona has been able to resist inflation for nearly a quarter-century is impressive. The fact that the cans usually wind up being cheaper than smaller soft drinks is also impressive, until you begin to realize how strange it is that a vat of iced tea and its accompanying ingredients somehow manages to be less expensive than plain water.

In a recent interview with Thrillist, AriZona chief marketing officer and co-owner Spencer Vultaggio shed some light on this convenience store mystery.

Unlike water titans Coke (which distributes Dasani), Evian, or Fiji, AriZona has virtually no advertising dollars invested in their teas. “We feel like it’s more important to spend money on something that our customer really cares about, instead of buying billboards or putting our cans in the hands of some celebrity for a few minutes,” Vultaggio said.

Even with a frugal approach to ads, AriZona still has to deal with rising production costs. To help resist increasing prices to compensate, the company has pursued alternative manufacturing methods, using 40 percent less aluminum in cans and having enough factories dotting the country to make transportation more efficient. Bottled water, in contrast, is sometimes sourced from abroad, making for exorbitant shipping costs.

In the end, it’s not the iced tea that’s more economical than the water; it’s that the container it comes in is simply cheaper to produce and transport. And while AriZona isn’t above charging a premium for fancier drinks—like a tea brewed with oak chips that sells for twice the price—their branding depends heavily on those familiar rows of 99-cent cans and the loyal consumers who keep reaching for them.

“ In August, 1968, the country was still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King four months earlier, and the race riots that followed on its heels. Nightly news showed burning cities, white flight, radicals and reactionaries snarling at each other across the cultural divide.

“A brand new children’s show out of Pittsburgh, which had gone national the previous year, took a different approach. Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood introduced Officer Clemmons, a black police officer who was a kindly, responsible authority figure, kept his neighborhood safe, and was Mr. Roger’s equal, colleague and neighbor.

“Around the first anniversary of Martin Luther King’s death, Mr. Rogers invited Officer Clemmons to join him in soaking their tired feet in a plastic wading pool. And there they were, brown feet and pasty white feet, side by side in the water. Silently, contemplatively, without comment.

“25 years later, when the actor playing Officer Clemmons retired, his last scene on the show revisited that same wading pool, this time reminiscing. Officer Clemmons asked Mr. Rogers what he’d been thinking during their silent interlude a quarter century before. Fred Rogers’ answer was that he’d been thinking of the many ways people say “I love you.”

- Carl Aveni’s FB page

im putting together a couple of scottish folk mixes bc that’s what i do and im honestly curious if anyone in my country has ever been unequivocally happy about anything ever

Indian villagers knit jumpers for elephants to protect them from near-freezing temperatures

MISS CONGENIALITY (2000) dir. Donald Petrie

where are those startups that are disrupting the glasses industry

minneapolis winter aesthetic, driving edition

periodic car horns outside (’f you ask me they sound vaguely like ducks with bad senses of direction who just scream whenever they get too close to each other)

driving very slowly down a hill with a four wheel drive truck patiently following your snail’s pace ass because listen buddy We’ve All Been There

guestimating where the parking spaces in the lot Probably are

plan an extra thirty minutes to brush six inches of frozen nonsense off your windshield and dig trenches behind your wheels before starting your commute

the windshield wiper thing when you park and pull them up so they don’t freeze and your car looks like a bug with antennae 

the knowledge deep within your soul that if necessary you will pilot this vehicle directly into a snowbank and you have made your Peace with this reality

lane dividers are a thing of the past just stick to the right of the road and pray

that look/nod of We’re All Doing Our Best It’s Okay when you fuck up and panic and the other driver sees you

justin mcelroy has said many powerful things but honestly no set of words in the english language conveys the same energy as “that’s a funny trick to play on god”

Popular with the troops.