A Prison Warden Gets Tango’d in Hilariously Nostalgic Spot

Today, Tango launches ‘Warden’, a new integrated campaign created by agency of record, VCCP London and its content creation studio Girl&Bear. 

‘Warden’ is the latest campaign from Tango as the brand continues on its journey to return to its iconic heritage: Tango’s bold adverts of the '90s and 2000s. It follows on from ‘Bust’, Tango’s comedic spot which launched in 2023 and focused on a police raid busting a Tango Dark Berry lab. With the help of the first burst of the campaign, the Britvic brand has seen sales increase +12.8% since last April and Tango is now the fastest growing Fruit Flavoured Carbs brand amongst the top five in its category. 

‘Warden’ is the second film within the ‘dangerously potent flavour’ brand platform, aimed at a gen z audience, which continues driving differentiation for Tango Orange by reasserting its powerful taste compared to generic orange fizzy drinks. 

The campaign is brought to life by an integrated agency team comprised of VCCP, Girl&Bear Studios who led production, VCCP’s in-house social team who created content for TikTok, and mSix&Partners who drove media planning and buying, and PR, in-store and sampling managed by Cirkle, Initials and ID respectively.

The spot aims to land the creative idea that Tango’s dangerously potent flavour leads to outrageously bold behaviour (getting Tango’d), as the iconic brand continues on its mission to increase its market share and introduce a younger generation to the powerful taste of Tango. 

The campaign breaks category norms of the soft drinks market as Tango taps into its heritage distinct position of being bold, pushing boundaries and behaving mischievously, all while retaining its classic British humour roots.

The campaign is centred around a 30” film produced by Girl&Bear Studios, VCCP’s global content creation studio. The film was directed by renowned comedic director, Ben Tonge, who directed last year’s film, ‘Bust’. In the spot, we see that ‘contraband’ has been smuggled into a prison cell. The prison warden enters the cell and asks the inmate, Pilkins, to hand the item over, to which the offender replies: “What sir? It’s just a bit of fizzy orange.” The drink is handed over to the officers who reveal a hidden can of Tango inside a fake, generic bottle of fizzy orange. “It’s Tango Orange,” the warden remarks. “The most powerful flavour on the street. Send him to the hole!”. As the prisoner is taken away, we see the warden dip his finger into the can to taste the ‘contraband’. A crazed look comes across the warden’s face, before he puts his heart and soul into dancing up and down the hall - to no music - while alarms blare and prisoners look on in hysterical confusion.

The ad features an ‘easter egg’: the Tango lab boss that was arrested in the original ‘Bust’ film is the prisoner that screams: “He’s completely Tango’d!”.

In addition to conceiving the idea for the campaign, VCCP’s in-house social specialists, the Creator Team, led on all content creation for TikTok. The social-first films consist of a series of ‘behind the scenes’ style TikTok videos, all recorded on set, including a native ‘POV’ film of the warden dancing from the point of view of the other prisoners.

The campaign is supported by social content across Instagram and out-of-home (OOH) across the country. Each execution demonstrates Tango’s mischievous brand platform, with OOH displaying a can of Tango Orange front and centre, accompanied by ‘Give your tongue a citrusy spank’ or ‘Blow your oranges off’ and paid social that reads ‘Get off your face on flavour’.

Munnawar Chishty, Great Britain marketing director at Britvic said, “Tango is back with another mischievous ad, building on our brand’s iconic roots as we continue to break boundaries within the soft drinks category. The ‘Warden’ campaign is the perfect follow-up to ‘Bust’, driving home the message that above all other competitors, Tango is the go to if you want a dangerously potent flavour.”

George Wait, creative director at VCCP said, “Tango is a brand with an incredible advertising heritage, one that’s always an honour and joy to work on. Following on from our campaign launch last year, ‘Warden’ is the latest instalment that we hope takes the series and the brand to a new exciting, and slightly mad place.”

The campaign will run from the 3rd May until the end August across TV, BVOD, DOOH/OOH, social and TikTok.