Truly Hard Seltzer loyalists, rejoice! The brand’s leading flavors will now feature real fruit in its bubbly seltzer offerings.
Truly’s Original Mix Packs will now contain real fruit, according to an emailed Aug. 31 press release. The reformulated Citrus, Berry, and Tropical packs join the brand’s Lemonade, Tea, Punch, and Margarita offerings, which already include real fruit.
As part of the new rollout, Truly launched a somewhat wacky commercial. For a 30-second video slot, the seltzer company employed a “professional fruit fly wrangler” to generate buzz for the new reformulations.
“Truly told us their hard seltzer is now made with real fruit juice. So we said: let’s prove it!,” Jeff Goodby, co-chairman and partner of marketing agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, states in the release. “We released dozens of real fruit flies around Truly and watched them with a microscopic lens. Think the flies had the best day of their very short lives. The result is a little gross but 100 percent authentic!”
Beginning on Aug. 22, the company also launched a 15-second television commercial that included beats from TikTok-favorite rapper Qveen Herby and dazzling shots of the seltzers’ slim cans.
The latest formula optimization initiative follows a previous recipe change in 2019.
While Truly has enjoyed red-hot popularity throughout hard seltzer’s heyday, it seems the Boston Beer’s company earnings have begun to lose their fizz. Year-to-date sales (running through Aug. 7) have decreased by nearly 16 percent, according to Brewbound. The downward trend in sales could hint at the motivation behind the reformulation and accompanying marketing campaign, which reportedly came with a multi-million dollar price tag.
Still, Truly sits at the second most popular hard seltzer in the United States, according to data from market research service IRI.
Will this change in taste result help Truly fly to new sales heights? Only time will tell.
