Clear craze

The clear craze was a marketing fad from the late 1980s to early 2000s, often equating transparency with purity. Inspired by Ivory's "99 and 44/100 percent pure" campaign for bath soap and by low-calorie or "light" beverages, sodas were redesigned in the 1980s and 1990s as being free of artificial dyes, such as the caffeine-free and preservative-free Crystal Pepsi. Personal hygiene products were then relaunched as clear dye-free gels, and many electronics had transparent cases.

Since the introduction of Plexiglas in the late 1930s, devices have been made with clear shells to expose the electromechanical components inside. At the 1939 New York World's Fair, a 139 Pontiac Deluxe Six engine with a clear Plexiglas body was put on display.^[1][2] Peaking in the 1960s and 1970s, transparent-shelled devices fell out of fashion until the clear craze in the late 1980s. Following the breakup of the Bell System in the mid 1980s, a surge of manufacturers began creating phones, some of them transparent.^[3]

A trend of "light" beer with fewer calories started in the 1960s. Then, color was identified in the marketing industry as a "tool for visual persuasion" toward a product's purity and health consciousness. Ivory soap was adapted from its classic milky solution and its slogan of "99 and 44/100 percent pure".^[4]

In the early 1990s, marketers briefly tried to revive old products with a collective "blue period" of blue popcorn, candy, and gelatin. New Product News explained that "Marketers will try anything to get the grocers to put a product on the shelves, even if it doesn't offer any significant benefit." Newsweek explained that "Companies hope the new products will help them catch the green wave-they're betting that customers will equate clear products with things that are pure and good for them and the environment. [...] marketers are trying to squeeze sales out of so-called mature products like Pepsi. After all, with Caffeine Free Pepsi, Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi and Wild Cherry Pepsi, what else is there?"^[5]

The clear craze became official with its first wave of products, and in 1993, a Gillette spokesperson reflected, "Clear represents the biggest trend in consumer products since the 'lite' products craze of the '80s." To showcase the reduction of calories or artificial flavors, many companies released clear versions of their products. A business professor commented on the clear craze about cars: "[The idea is] we drink clear water, so the car should drink natural things, too."^[5]

The clear cola market was entered by Crystal Pepsi on April 13, 1992^[6] exalting its lack of preservatives and caffeine, although Pepsi already had no preservatives and had a caffeine-free version.^[4][7] Coca-Cola soon responded with Tab Clear.^[8] Clearly Canadian sparkling water followed.^[5] In August 1992, Coors announced Zima ClearMalt, a clear, carbonated malt beer it described as "not sweet, does not have a fruity taste, is not heavy or filling and leaves no aftertaste".^[5] In 1993, Miller released Miller Clear to mixed reviews.^[9][5] Palmolive introduced a clear dishwashing liquid for sensitive skin and gained 5% market share.^[5] Gillette launched ClearGel versions of its existing deodorants and shaving creams, with an estimated $2 million for 90 seconds of Super Bowl airtime, and these lines have continued indefinitely.^[10]

Through the 1990s, clear product launches included mouthwash (such as alcohol-free ClearChoice), mascara,^[5] watches, staplers, calculators, handheld gaming devices such as the Game Boy,^[11] and computers such as Apple's iMac G3.^{[citation needed]} In September 1993, Amoco joined the clear craze by renaming its plain high-octane gasoline to Crystal Clear Amoco Ultimate, which reduces hydrocarbon tailpipe emissions by an average of 13%, and which had been launched 77 years prior in 1915 without particular success.^[5]

• 
  Crystal Pepsi
• 
  A translucent indigo iMac G3
• 
  A translucent orange Nintendo 64

• Retrofuturism – Creative arts movement inspired by historic depictions of the future