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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?

#171

Post by raverbashing »

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…

You can't (and shouldn't) A/B a redesign.

There is much more than "this one is better than the other one" (to some random passer-bys)

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

#172

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

> why are you doing it?

Because people need more salary/bonuses/consulting fees/resume fodder and will constantly push for it, making up various bullshit to justify it. Sometimes it goes through and a redesign project is started, and once started, it's very hard to turn back while saving face.

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

#173

Post by bowsamic »

geoduck14 wrote: post #73
b112 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have lost, literally lost things I liked to buy at the grocery, due to changed packaging. One time I had to Google images for a 20 minutes to find old images, then write down the brand/ type. Another, the package changed, and the new package stated some strange "new" ingredient, which left me struggling to know if the flavour changed. I honestly would just prefer a package never changes for my entire life. Edi…

Likewise. My wife once sent me to the store to buy Cheerios and Honey Crisp Apples. I grabbed the Cheerios, then, still on the cereal isle, I looked everywhere for thr Honey Crisp Apples - before I realized the Apples were apples in the produce department

How is that relevant?

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

#174

Post by rob74 »

gambiting wrote: post #170

These kinds of changes always feel to me like a new designer coming in and feeling like they need to make their mark - so they mess with an original design that works fine, just for the sake of some stupid career progression. See: literally all Google products. Endlessly changing interfaces, one worse than another, for literally no reason - other than what I can only imagine is a string of promotions and designers fe…

It's not just Google sadly - Microsoft had that before them (in every single version of Windows you had to get used to a new UI in the file explorer), and even Mozilla likes to tweak the UI of Firefox to death. Actually Google Chrome is better in this regard. Sure, they add new features too, but those fit in with the rest, and the design changes are gradual (less disruptive than Firefox' "our tabs now look like buttons").

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

#176

Post by Agentlien »

Closi wrote: post #166
Agentlien wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a lot of websites I visit frequently what I want is ease of use and familiarity. Redesigns are often a bother since I need to learn to navigate the new site. For sites I don't visit as often I likely won't really notice a redesign.

As a counterpoint, Facebook got criticism for each redesign but if they kept their 2001 aesthetic it would look and feel incredibly dated now.

I haven't had a Facebook account for many years now, but I remember that what bothered me about their redesigns wasn't how they changed visuals to keep up to date. It was a rapid series of restructurings which meant you always felt you didn't know where to find things.

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

#177

Post by rob74 »

wodenokoto wrote: post #159
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…

You still need to know _why_ it was junk, or else you might end up buying snake oil from someone else.

Yes, but the article should have also mentioned that the new design was pushed through by an overconfident star designer, that's definitely part of the story.

Regarding the actual design, sure, a nice fresh-looking orange is more enticing than a glass of orange juice, but I didn't even recognize that big orange blob as orange juice in a glass from the picture in the article, and I doubt consumers in a supermarket (who usually only see one side of the carton) would have recognized it at a glance. So you have generic-looking sans serif text beside a generic-looking orange blob. Doesn't sound like a recipe for success...

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

#178

Post by test1235 »

GuB-42 wrote: post #29
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.

It actually happened to me, actually more than once on drastically changed designs. I buy the same thing I had at home, because I like it, and why change things that work? At the store, I don't see it. I may notice that product with the same name, but the spell is broken, it is no longer the product I mindlessly buy again and again, and it may be a good occasion to try something else. Even worse, I may end up buying…

>Even worse, I may end up buying competing products that look more like the original design than the new design of the same brand.

I wonder what the legal implications would be of copying a product's old abandoned design? Especially if the original was to revert back?

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

#179

Post by iNerdier »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #134
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 o…

C-level execs are the bullshit in these stories. They meddled with something that wasn’t broken and this was the result.

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

#180

Post by somat »

woodruffw wrote: post #16

This is a little bit of a tangent, but I've always thought that it was funny that orange juice is overwhelmingly sold in liquid form, not as frozen concentrate. You can buy concentrate here in the US, but it's much less common (and, IME, fewer and fewer grocery stores stock it.) Given that most liquid orange just is just reconstituted concentrate anyways, buying the liquid form means paying for the shipping and space…

The problem is that to store orange juice "fresh, never concentrated" you have to take all the oxygen out, this makes the juice taste like... well nothing. so then they have to put the flavor back in.

It makes me wonder if the frozen concentrate is actually closer to the original orange than the "fresh never concentrated" stuff?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_juice

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