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How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

bootcamp.uxdesign.cc

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Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#131

Post by moistly »

userbinator wrote: post #40
makecheck wrote: post #35

What seems to be lost in these “redesigns” is the why : why are you doing it? If there isn’t a list of benefits long enough to justify the cost and possible risk, well, that’s a problem. There’s also a tendency for companies to be super proud of what they’ve done so they neglect methods like A/B testing and instead just bet the farm on their great new design. After all, it cost a lot of money and looks cool to the de…

I suspect the "why" is most simply explained by "because designers had to justify their salaries."

I am absolutely certain that this explains the changes to the iOS Safari changes. Someone justified their existence in Apple by moving the close button in the mini fixed tabs display from the left—the side it’s displayed on the tabs themselves—to the right.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#132

Post by bigDinosaur »

nkozyra wrote: post #84
irrational wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked on a website that was completely redesigned every few years. We, the developers, didn’t understand why until one of the business people, who was leaving for a new job, admitted to us that they (the business management team) mainly did it because it was fun, because it let them expense meetings/travel/food doing “research” and meeting with design consultants, because it gave them something to do other than th…

Preface: I think a lot of us - particularly developers - have a tendency to mock/devalue what people in design and UI/UX do. I think there's incredible value in what they do and part of that is keeping sites from going stale. I believe that in general people get fatigue from seeing the same design day-in, day-out. There's a cost to not changing. Or at least a trade-off. The risk is when redesign is carte blanche for…

It depends on what you view a website as.

- a tool?

- a marketing piece?

Redesign for the sake of it is usually bad for the former. It's fine (good?) for the latter.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#133

Post by numair »

I looked at the title, opened the link, searched for “Peter Arnell,” got zero results, and knew the article was total garbage.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnells-explanation-of-failed-t...

I had a close friend who worked on a project where they brought this guy in. Charged $1m a month and invoiced his jet fuel to the company, if I remember correctly. Now you know where the $30M actually went.

The article is an example of insufferably authoritative articles about “design thinking” combined with pseudo-science (the heat map image). You don’t need to know any of that, to know that Peter Arnell was an idiot and his design was utter junk.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#134

Post by lifeisstillgood »

numair wrote: post #133

I looked at the title, opened the link, searched for “Peter Arnell,” got zero results, and knew the article was total garbage. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnells-explanation-of-failed-t... I had a close friend who worked on a project where they brought this guy in. Charged $1m a month and invoiced his jet fuel to the company, if I remember correctly. Now you know where the $30M actually went. The article is an exam…

But Indont think this is about "some guy came up with a crap design". It strikes me a number of things went badly

1. I think C-level execs at major corporations should have built up immunity against such bullshit.

2. The heatmap (plus the associated idea of lots of consumer testing) should have spotted something

3. the rollout seems to have been global and immediate, instead of for example testing the new packaging out in say tiny geographical markets first

All of this reeks of failing to have rock solid product management (and release mgmt) at its core. Maybe we will find out more, but in the end, the loss was manageable, sales recovered and maybe the company learnt its lessons - would be interesting to hear what process and people changes occurred the days after ?

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#135

Post by mateo1 »

bee_rider wrote: post #33
tomcam wrote: post #2

It is my theory, backed up by nothing but instinct and my own very fallible personal experience, that many customers simply did not “see“ the new design. That is, they would have preferred to buy Tropicana but assumed it had disappeared from the shelves.

Yeah. The article has all this stuff about emotional attachment, blah blah blah. Really, orange juice is kinda hit and miss, so I prefer to stick with a particular brand (Tropicana). The redesign is 1) totally unrecognizable 2) pretty generic looking It is literally just hard to spot next to the other juices.

On top of that, a major redesign of your package implies a major change in your product. Not everyone is keen of change.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#136

Post by moistly »

No doubt this design change had to be approved by the executive class. And I’m told to believe that their $20M paycheque is justified because, you know, they’re such valuable assets to the company. Smarter, savvier, better than the peons who do the actual labour. They must be, because they always fail upwards.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#137

Post by StanislavPetrov »

makecheck wrote: post #35

What seems to be lost in these “redesigns” is the why : why are you doing it? If there isn’t a list of benefits long enough to justify the cost and possible risk, well, that’s a problem. There’s also a tendency for companies to be super proud of what they’ve done so they neglect methods like A/B testing and instead just bet the farm on their great new design. After all, it cost a lot of money and looks cool to the de…

> What seems to be lost in these “redesigns” is the why: why are you doing it? If there isn’t a list of benefits long enough to justify the cost and possible risk, well, that’s a problem.

Exactly. Unless your brand is in trouble or you are trying to deflect the attention from some sort of scandal the odds of losing existing customers from a successful business is far higher than the odds of attracting new customers because you have changed your packaging.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#138

Post by bmease »

numair wrote: post #133

I looked at the title, opened the link, searched for “Peter Arnell,” got zero results, and knew the article was total garbage. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arnells-explanation-of-failed-t... I had a close friend who worked on a project where they brought this guy in. Charged $1m a month and invoiced his jet fuel to the company, if I remember correctly. Now you know where the $30M actually went. The article is an exam…

I believe you should have read the article. It discusses $30 million in lost sales due to the packaging redesign. It was not talking about the costs to do the redesign.

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#139

Post by jrumbut »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #86
makecheck wrote: post #35

What seems to be lost in these “redesigns” is the why : why are you doing it? If there isn’t a list of benefits long enough to justify the cost and possible risk, well, that’s a problem. There’s also a tendency for companies to be super proud of what they’ve done so they neglect methods like A/B testing and instead just bet the farm on their great new design. After all, it cost a lot of money and looks cool to the de…

The "why" was pretty clearly explained in TFA: > One of the main reasons for rebranding/redesigning is for brands to reconnect with existing consumers and reach out to new ones. The notable point here IMO is not "why did they do it?" but "how/why did it fail so badly?"

The piece suffered from not having nearly enough detail here. Why did they choose that exact moment? What led them to choose the new design no one liked?

I would imagine the fruit juice industry is under some pressure. When I was a kid their product was viewed as a staple breakfast item that was beneficial to your health. These days its reputation is more like soda, too sugary for regular consumption.

Were they really redesigning for vague brand marketing reasons or were they grasping at straws to revive declining sales?

Re: How did Tropicana lose $30M in a packaging redesign?

#140

Post by Fomite »

shkkmo wrote: post #126
JacobAldridge wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - if I'm interpreting that rapidly-changing GIF correctly, where previously people were drawn to the brand name now their eyes focused on "100% Orange" ... which completely commoditizes the contents. "I couldn't find the stuff we normally get, so I bought this one because it was cheaper".

Yeah, scanning a shelf, I would assume that the redesigned package was one of those internal brands with very generic package design.

This was absolutely my impression too. "One is Tropicana, the other is the slightly upscale store brand."
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