Created by advertising agency HHCL (Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury and Partners), a longtime collaborator of Tango.

Despite the controversy, it contributed to a boost of sales by more than a third, and has gained acclaim in later years, even featuring and ranking highly in several lists of the greatest advertisements ever made.

Then, a man painted completely orange (Peter Geeves) comes onto the scene, who runs around the men and then taps the Tango drinker on the back.

Ralph becomes excited as he reveals this to be "Tango taste sensation" and asks Tony to rewind the clip again to the same point as before, this time showing the orange man sprint out from behind a pillar box and shows the same events as before with Ralph and Tony providing commentary.

[4] HHCL, who had been operating since 1987, had earned a reputation in the business for breaking several norms in advertising and established an avant-garde theme in 1989, when, in launching the direct banking service, First Direct, aired two advertisements simultaneously on ITV and Channel 4, interrupting an Audi advert, one offering an optimistic and the other a pessimistic view, and a number of short, surreal spots in which the visual had little or nothing to do with the message.

[3] Robinson and Young were creative partners, and were "pretty anti-advertising in [their] mindsets" at the time because of their boredom and frustration with the industry norm of "cause and effect advertising", and were desperate to make a name for themselves after "spending what felt like eons trying to get into a West End agency.

[6] The idea for the advertisement originally started out as a joke, with Robinson recalling "We said how brilliant it would be if you had a drink and something shocking happened, but so quickly that nobody else saw it.

[3] The plot of the advertisement originally involved the orange man punching the Tango drinker in the mouth, as they were trying to make the advertisement as "stupid" and slapstick as possible; before they then changed the idea to the orange man kicking Tango drinker up the buttocks, but both ideas were deemed too aggressive,[6] so their final idea of the orange man slapping the drinker across the cheeks, described by Robinson as a "Morecambe and Wise-esque little tap on the cheeks," was used.

[6] The team originally used American football commentators, but we were asked to make "everything more British," so they hired English actor Hugh Dennis to perform the voice of Ralph and ex-footballer Ray Wilkins to perform the voice of Tony; Robinson recalled that Dennis' "Eddie Waring-esque commentary" was deliberately intended to contrasted with the "dry and amusing delivery" of Wilkins.

[8] Robinson praised him, saying that he was a "really good actor, and he was just the best at reacting to being hit, he never made a big deal out of it," calling his performance "cool and dopey.

"[6] The orange man was portrayed by serious up-and-coming actor Peter Geeves; the advert's co-creator Al Young recalled that "the guy we used [Geeves] was like a Shakespearean actor," and noted that out of all who auditioned for the role, "he was the one who made [the creators] laugh the most," adding that the way he ran "was surreal".

[8] Robinson and Young went to the shooting location–a park–to do a test film, which essentially involved them "mucking about, 'Tangoing' each other;" as they "messed around" they decided the "little slap" just wasn't powerful enough, so they exaggerated it; Robinson recalled that "if you watch the ad, the Orange Man's arms go way back before he slaps the person in the face.

Orange Man was an instant success; Robinson recalled in 2015 that "I first knew the ad was huge when I fell asleep on the London Underground one evening.

'"[3] Nonetheless, Orange Man soon sparked large controversy in the media and in public after it was discovered children had copied the events of the advertisement in playgrounds and injured themselves; Rupert Howell, a Tango advertisement executive, stated in 2000 that Orange Man "sparked a playground craze" where "people used to go round sort of slapping each other and saying 'You've Been Tango'd', and it was all very entertaining and great fun.

[8] Sarah McCartney referred to the advertisement in her 2011 book 100 Great Branding Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World, where she comments that despite the controversy surrounding its slogan, "the phrase had captured the public's imagination.

"[13] In 2016, Ben Priest, founding partner and chief creative officer at communications agency adam&eveDDB, included the advert in his list of "3 Great Ads I Had Nothing to Do With", part of a series for Campaign Live, where he said "the hype it created and the fondness with which people remember the ad makes it one of the most successful of its time.

"[14] Marketing Society's website The Library states that Orange Man is the reason why Tango is included in their list of the "golden brands of 1992".

[15] Furthermore, Campaign Live stated that "no commercial better symbolized the creative iconoclasm of Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury during the early 90s" than Orange Man,[16] and presenter Jenni Falconer said the advert was "brilliant, and everybody loved it and everyone thought it was great.

"[17] Orange Man is also credited by Outmost Studio for pioneering what would later become known as guerilla advertising,[9] with Tim Delaney of Legas Delaney saying "the whole point was that this radical, strong, full-of-attitude campaign worked – it shifted cans of fizzy pop in a way that got Britvic's rivals panicking.

[22] Orange Man was parodied in a sketch from a 1992 episode of The Real McCoy that also parodies the assault of Rodney King, showing the Tango drinker, an actor portraying King, getting assaulted by the Los Angeles Police Department after drinking a "Tango'd" can in his car, ending with the slogan "You Know When You Have Been L.A.P.D'd".