The sales data is pretty discouraging for Tropicana. Negative consumer feedback is one thing, but it seems that losing tens of millions in sales is what ultimately motivated Tropicana to rescind it’s new branding design.
Peter Arnell, CEO of Omnicom’s Arnell Group, creators the new packaging, explains the creative thought behind the design in this video. He talks about an effort to “evolve [the brand] into a more current, or modern, state” and about showing the product itself — the “purity of the juice.” But what he seemed really proud of was engineering a clever “squeeze cap” to introduce the emotional connection a consumer was thought to have with oranges when they opened the container. All well-intentioned design considerations, I would say.
I was picking up some items at the local Stop and Shop the other day and snapped this picture:
Which design says “I’m a tasty carton of delicious, fresh, natural juice” to you?
My reaction to the design wasn’t quite as negative as some colleagues of mine. But I find two things at the root of the failure, despite what Arnell is arguing. The first is the removal the emotional connection to the orange. The elimination of the visual relationship of an orange in favor of orange colored liquid doesn’t seem to add much emotion. Milk containers featuring a charming illustration of a quaint farm on lush, rolling hills is much more inviting than the sterility of white liquid, no matter how pure it might be. The other floundering I see is forcing the look and feel of the design too far modern. I love Helvetica. It might be the most beautiful, unimpaired, pure typefaces ever designed. But it’s also plain, perfunctory and restrained. It’s a font you use when you don’t want to say anything. It works for many applications like fashion and signage. But food? Hmm…
What remains to be seen is if this flap will result in any permanent market share loss to Tropicana’s competition. I’m also interested in knowing what kind of testing and research was (or wasn’t) done in advance of moving forward with this design to the market.
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11 insightful responses to Why did Tropicana’s new packaging design cost them $33 million?
I loved the old design compared to the new one. I mean what’s not to like about an orange with a straw stuck in it?
I see something else in that picture worth pointing out — usability. The two cartons side-by-side are not the same variety of orange juice. One is no-pulp, the other is no-pulp-with-calcium.
In the old-style packaging, that entire orange-colored background on the no-pulp would be blue for no-pulp-with-calcium. In the new-style packaging, you just have that blue stripe hidden by the overhang of the shelf above…
See the difference?
Lis – that is a great observation that I completely overlooked. I’m a no pulp OJ drinker, and I don’t like spending my time in a grocery store. Therefore I had been conditioned to go straight for the orange color coded carton. With the new design, I would have to look for that thin blue strip at the top.
Great comparison shot. When the same juice is in the old and new package right next to each other, I wonder what the sales numbers look like for each.
Unfortunately, we made that mistake and suffered through a carton of the chalky stuff. Here’s their entire range of cartons, both styles if you want to play mix-n-match.
Great post! I noticed it as well and continued to grab the wrong type of OJ I wanted when I was severely hungover. I’ve noticed a lot of rebranding going on in Manhattan; Duane Reade and Energy Kitchen to name a few.
I find it interesting that the new design seems to resemble a cocktail glass more than an orange. Are they trying to remind us that we can use OJ while mixing our favorite alcoholic beverage? With that said, I really did not think anything of the new versus old design. I more or less just acknowledged that Tropicana, like everyone else, is just trying to bump up their sales with new advertisement. Also, I don’t drink orange juice; I stick to oranges
I have to agree, the previous design was vastly superior, such a waste of money at this time during a recession… dare them to make some staff unemployed now!
Wow, this is really a late comment on this post, right? Just looking around and found this post (great site, btw). But, I found it very interesting that they went for the blue caps instead of the orange ones (especially with the leaves). Strangeness.
Wow. Haven’t they had that brand recognition for decades now? I’m missing it already.
Lis – that is a great observation that I completely overlooked. I’m a no pulp OJ drinker, and I don’t like spending my time in a grocery store. Therefore I had been conditioned to go straight for the orange color coded carton. With the new design, I would have to look for that thin blue strip at the top.