Quaker Oats thought it was a no-brainer: if a couple of window washers could shape Snapple into a potential billion-dollar company, just imagine what guys in suits with MBAs could do with it. In late 1994, Chicago-based Quaker Oats, which had turned Gatorade into a powerhouse, bought Snapple for $1.7 billion. Weinstein was CEO of Snapple from 1997 to 2001, and since he was tasked with reversing the damage done by the previous owner, he has a pretty good sense of what went wrong. In my quest to find out how Snapple fell off, I called Mike Weinstein, chairman of the INOV8 Beverage Company. Meet the guys who pretty much made it go south By 1994, the company was on the brink of $1 billion in sales. “If we like it, the customers will like it.” That led to some crazy flavors - Ralph’s Cantaloupe Cocktail, Kiwi Teawi - that hardly contributed to the bottom line but did wonders for Snapple’s persona. That go-by-feel approach extended to product development. Later they used one of their own employees as a spokeswoman, the Long Island-tuned “Wendy the Snapple Lady,” in their ads. Then the founders learned that Rush Limbaugh liked Diet Snapple, so they started advertising on Limbaugh’s show as well. Stern liked these beverage peddlers from Long Island, and he’d go into long digressions about the wonders of Snapple, even though the company had paid for only 30 seconds of airtime. They listened to Howard Stern’s radio show on their way to work, so they started advertising on it to hear themselves on the radio. Lenny, Hymie, and Arnie built Snapple by following their guts. Then in 1987, they introduced flavored iced teas, and for the first time in history iced tea tasted appetizing. In 1986, they knocked the fruit content down to about 10%.

In the beginning they sold 100% juice drinks, but soon they realized that using real fruit cut into their profit margins. They named their company after one of their first products, Snappy apple juice.

Their names were Leonard Marsh, Hyman Golden, and Arnold Greenberg, but friends called them Lenny, Hymie, and Arnie (they’ve all since passed away). Forty-three years ago, a pair of window washers here teamed up with a health food store owner to sell a line of fruit juices. Turns out, New York was the right place to start. How did something so widely loved and even revolutionary wind up as the MySpace of soda alternatives? I decided to go find out. But the ad - part of a new “Born in New York, Made for Everyone” marketing effort that no one seems to understand - brought those memories back. Legions joined me not long after as Snapple fell out of favor and lost its dominance over the market and the popular imagination. The love affair lasted for a few years in the early 1990s, until I became a serious runner and gave up Snapple for water. I was hit with the rush of sweet peach, and unlike the other teas I had choked down, this one didn’t clobber me with a heavy, tea-leafy aftertaste. She obliged, and I proceeded to take a long gulp. I thought iced tea generally tasted like rust, but I was desperate and asked my mom for a sip. The beads of water falling off the chilled bottle made it look as if it were sweating. I saw my mom had a Snapple Peach Tea in the cup holder. Our family had gone swimming at the city pool, and as we drove home in our gray Astro van I was dying of thirst. I remember drinking it for the first time as a kid one summer. My memories of Snapple are sun-dappled, like its logo. Seeing a grown-up brand groveling for affection is a drag, like a past-his-prime standup comedian demanding laughs from an indifferent crowd.Īlso, I thought, when’s the last time I drank one of those things? Has the once-mighty beverage that captured our teenage hearts and wowed us with that hollow bottle cap-popping sound really sunk to this cheap ask? I found myself feeling a pang of embarrassment on Snapple’s behalf. Show us why you #LOVESNAPPLE and we might share it with the rest of the country. The rest of the country doesn’t love Snapple as much as New Yorkers do. I was standing in a packed subway car when I saw the ad.

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