In 1909, French journalist-turned-entrepreneur Pierre-Francois Lardet returned from a trip to Nicaragua determined to recreate a beverage he had tasted there.
Five years later, in August 1914, Banania was born.
The arrival of the chocolate-flavoured banana powder drink came just as France found itself at war.
The following year, its mascot – a Black soldier wearing a red fez – first appeared on an advertising poster.
During World War I, 200,000 African soldiers fought for France on the battlefields of Europe, Africa and Anatolia. They came from French colonies in West and Central Africa. Many were forcibly recruited.
The African soldier on the Banania poster resembled soldiers known as the Senegalese Tirailleurs (riflemen), who wore a signature red fez. This military corps, founded in 1857, was given its name because its first recruits came from Senegal.
The tirailleurs were famed for their bravery. They were first sent to serve in the colonial wars in West and Central Africa, before fighting in World War I (1914-18). During World War II (1939-45), they served in France, North Africa and the Middle East. At least 30,000 tirailleurs died during the First World War, while an estimated 8,000 died during the Second.
Banania’s tirailleur is smiling, sitting on the grass with a bowl of the powdered drink and a rifle by his side. His exaggerated smile and facial features resemble the racial stereotypes popular at the time and seen in advertisements for chocolate, soap and shoe polish.
The poster’s slogan, “Y’a bon”, meaning “C’est bon” (this is good) in the simplified French taught to colonial soldiers, furthered the racist caricature of the cheerful but simple African. The company referred to its mascot as “L’ami Y’a bon” – the Y’a bon friend.
Against the backdrop of World War I, Lardet’s Mascot tapped into a mood of patriotism and pride in French colonialism. But it also helped to encourage public acceptance of African soldiers fighting on French soil, explains Sandrine Lemaire, a historian and co-author of several books on French colonisation. Banania wasn’t alone. The French authorities also sought to use images highlighting the loyalty and military qualities of France’s African soldiers through propaganda, postcards and news articles.
“The tirailleur was an opportunistic advertising invention from Lardet … which made the consumption of Banania a quasi-patriotic act,” said Pap Ndiaye, a politician and historian, during a 2010 talk about Banania and colonial oppression.
Banania was promoted through children’s comics featuring the mascot. In one, he returns to his homeland from France, bringing two boxes of Banania to Africans dressed in loincloths. In an illustrated booklet published in 1933, he takes Banania to France before going to the West Indies, the Canary Islands and French colonial Indochina to set up banana plantations.
“In the 20s, 30s, 40s, Banania was everywhere. It had touchpoints in all domains – cinema, packaging, promotional items, notebooks,” said branding expert Jean Watin-Augouard in a 2014 documentary about Banania.
Meanwhile, between the late 1930s and the early 1950s, according to the sole book published about Banania’s history, the company tripled production. These were Banania’s golden years before Nesquik entered the market in the 1960s.
The mascot, which appeared in advertising, packaging and collectible items, such as toys, was popular throughout the 20th century because it reinforced French people’s pride in their colonial empire and their “subjects’” contribution to the war effort, says Etienne Achille, an associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.
Shaken by decolonisation
But as the French colonies in Africa fought for and gained independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, Banania was also shaken by decolonisation.
Increasingly, Banania – with its slogan and stereotyped mascot – became shorthand for colonialism and racism. The tirailleur, in representing soldiers forced to fight for France, came to embody the injustice denounced by anti-colonial movements.
“I will tear up the Banania smiles from all the walls of France,” wrote Leopold Sedar Senghor, who became Senegal’s first president in 1960, in a 1948 poem dedicated to the tirailleurs.
A few years later, Martinique-born philosopher-psychiatrist Frantz Fanon made several references to “Y’a bon Banania” in his 1952 book Black Skin, White Masks, to denote how Black people in France are seen through the lens of racist tropes.
But, despite the criticisms, the mascot remained, albeit with updates.
In 1967, when advertising sold modern, aspirational lifestyles, it became simplified and geometric: a brown triangular face with cartoon eyes and a red rectangular hat on a yellow background. The slogan, however, was retired in 1977.
In the 1980s and 1990s, a cartoonish child’s face was introduced on some of the brand’s products, while others retained the mascot.
In 2004, after Banania was acquired by French company Nutrial under a holding company, Nutrimaine, a new mascot was unveiled: the “grandson” of the 1915 tirailleur, who, according to Nutrimaine, symbolised diversity and the successful integration of migrant communities into French society. But his stereotyped features weren’t so different from his predecessor’s, with his ecstatic smile, white teeth and red fez.
During the last decades of the 20th century, the French brand never regained its dominant position and continued to lose ground to competitors like Nesquik. It had struggled financially while becoming less popular among younger generations.
“They had to return to the golden era of the brand to save the company. There was only one way to do it: to go back to the emblem. Very few brands are so connected to their emblem,” explained Achille. “This rejuvenated version effectively plays on the idea of superposition. When you see it, you immediately think of the old tirailleur.”
The design also caught the attention of writers and activists at Grioo.com, an online platform for the French-speaking Black community in Europe and Africa. “Can we tolerate that in 2005 we are represented as our ancestors were 90 years ago?” Grioo asked its readers, launching an online petition against Banania.
‘Hurtful’ heritage
More than two decades later, the “grandson” still smiles on Banania boxes in supermarkets across France.
For Achille, Banania’s marketing epitomises France’s lack of public debate about colonialism and postcolonial racism. “Only the complete imbrication of the colonial into popular culture can explain why Banania can continue to operate with impunity,” he said. “In other countries, this would not be possible.”
A spokesperson for Nutrimaine declined to provide comment for this article.
Awatif Bentahar, 37, grew up seeing Banania on supermarket shelves and drinking it on occasion. She says, “The company hasn’t understood how their heritage can actually be hurtful to a big part of the population.
“The French ‘children of immigrants’ see the painful history of colonisation and the struggle we are waging today to be respected in a society that cannot help but refer on a daily basis to our status of ‘different’ French.”
As a graphic designer and a French woman of Moroccan descent, Bentahar would like to see Banania evolve. As a personal project, she created alternative decolonised packaging, removing the mascot and drawing from previous designs to include playful eyes and a smile.
“I decided to try to rebrand Banania, not because I hate it, but because I actually like the idea of what it could be. Brands are part of our lives, whether we like it or not,” she wrote on her blog.
“This one happens to be part of my childhood, and I would love to see it being on the good side of history for a change.”
This article is part of “Ordinary items, extraordinary stories”, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items.
Read more from the series:
How the inventor of the bouncy castle saved lives
How a popular Peruvian soft drink went ‘toe-to-toe’ with Coca-Cola
How a drowning victim became a lifesaving icon