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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?

#21

Post by tootie »

lelandfe wrote: post #13

This article looks like an odd repackaging (wink) of the original: https://medium.com/loceye/how-we-predicted-tropicanas-big-fa... ...Which is also maybe a bit tenuous, given that they just had people do eye tracking on renders of the packaging, and the two cartons are angled differently. Does that translate into real world eye attention?

That is linked from the main article and is itself a bit of an ad for their eye-tracking software with some dubious claims. But it did send me down a rabbit hole over the agency that did the package design. The design came from Arnell Group headed by Peter Arnell. Arnell was retained to rebrand both Tropicana and Pepsi (same parent corp) and the produced the infamous logo redesign deck that circulated back in 2008: https://www.reddit.com/r/Design/comments/hspqgd/pepsi_logo_r...

My guess is that Pepsi didn't know what they were doing, hired an agency who came on really strong with a ton of bravado about how their instincts trump research and got sold a pile of magic beans.

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

#22

Post by henvic »

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…

> buying the liquid form means paying for the shipping and space cost of the water.

Buying frozen solid means cleaning up your mixer. I also bet it's easier to lose some fiber.

Either way, the taste isn't the same as freshly made juice.

I'm from Brazil and loved tangerine/mandarin juice since when I was a kid. Now I've moved to the Netherlands and love it even more. How come, you may ask? In Brazil, we usually find tangerine pulps. Here, I buy fresh tangerine in the supermarket. Sure thing, it takes much longer to squeeze them and clean things up... but the taste is 5 times better.

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

#23

Post by SilasX »

tomhallett wrote: post #6

The new design doesn’t mention the pulp level and that’s one of the main things I’m thinking about when trying to pick out an OJ. So when you pair that with a redesign, it’s unclear to me what’s in the carton.

So, a redesign that looks better to the designer and sacrifices critical functionality.

Web users: "Welcome to our world."

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

#24

Post by silisili »

A lot of things I don't buy super often, I just remember the packaging or color and not the brand name. In this case, I'd remember the orange with the straw and a green logo, maybe. In fact, before opening the article, I knew about the OJ with that image, but no idea it was Tropicana.

So if I liked that brand, and went in and couldn't find that image, I'd probably just pick something at random.

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

#26

Post by chiph »

I hadn't noticed the redesign (I don't buy OJ all that often). But looking at it - the sentence at the bottom of the article totally matches my impression of it being a discount store brand.

> On the other hand, the new packaging failed to impress the consumers, with clean lines, a lack of visuals, transforming the once indistinguishable orange juice into a "generic store brand" product.

It reminds me of the failed redesign of the JC Penny logo. The new logo was crisp, clean, modern, and was 100% not what their customers were looking for.

https://www.businessinsider.com/jcpenneys-new-logo-2013-5

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

#27

Post by woodruffw »

henvic wrote: post #22
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…

> buying the liquid form means paying for the shipping and space cost of the water. Buying frozen solid means cleaning up your mixer. I also bet it's easier to lose some fiber. Either way, the taste isn't the same as freshly made juice. I'm from Brazil and loved tangerine/mandarin juice since when I was a kid. Now I've moved to the Netherlands and love it even more. How come, you may ask? In Brazil, we usually find t…

> Buying frozen solid means cleaning up your mixer. I also bet it's easier to lose some fiber.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've always just put the concentrate brick (cylinder?) into a pitcher, filled it up with the right amount of water, and mixed it until fully melted. It's no worse to clean up than anything else in a pitcher would be.

I agree completely about fresh-squeezed juices, by the way. I do my own juices directly when I have time! But the point was about American consumers, who are buying reconstituted concentrate anyways (just that someone's done the reconstituting for them.)

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

#28

Post by lupire »

chiph wrote: post #26

I hadn't noticed the redesign (I don't buy OJ all that often). But looking at it - the sentence at the bottom of the article totally matches my impression of it being a discount store brand. > On the other hand, the new packaging failed to impress the consumers, with clean lines, a lack of visuals, transforming the once indistinguishable orange juice into a "generic store brand" product. It reminds me of the failed r…

Specifically, they threw away "Penney" which was, you know, the name of the company that everyone knew.

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

#29

Post by GuB-42 »

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 competing products that look more like the original design than the new design of the same brand.

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

#30

Post by lupire »

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…

Around here, concentrate + water costs as much the dilute, or even more, so why bother?
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