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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?

#91

Post by interestica »

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.

I think most importantly it's that sideways text is harder to process at a glance than what we're used to. So, it ends up becoming a design element rather than text. And the orange/straw icon is also, in some ways, a pictograph for recognition.

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

#92

Post by filmgirlcw »

Gosh, I remember this so well (it was 2009, not 2008, as this article states), rarely has a new logo/packaging change had such an impact on a product (Gap’s aborted logo redesign in late 2010 is probably still the ultimate example. That one lasted less than a week before reverting.).

A better retrospective I think, is here [1], but it failed for all the reasons people in the comments have said. When you’re talking about consumer packaged goods, it is important to remain recognizable, especially on a store shelf. Getting rid of the iconic orange with a straw and replacing it with something that was very late-2000s Swiss type minimalist was just the wrong move. And an expensive mistake.

Not Pepsi’s first or last logo/packaging mistake (there is a great meme that shows all the iterations of the Pepsi logo/can design over the years and then like one Coca-Cola design that has basically been consistent since the 1890s or something that isn’t technically accurate, but it true enough in the abstract), but probably one of its more costly, especially since it didn’t include a formulation change.

[1]: https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2015/05/what-to-learn-fro...

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

#93

Post by mannykannot »

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?"

That would have been the fallacy of unjustifiably arguing from the general to the specific. What you have stated are arguments why a company might choose to rebrand. They are not arguments that Tropicana should have done it, and not when it did.

My guess is that the marketing people drank too deeply of their own Kool-Aid, so to speak.

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

#94

Post by ajcoll5 »

throw_away wrote: post #10
richbell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially the "No Name" brand in Canada. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Name_(brand)

This used to exist in the US as well: http://gbnfgroceries.blogspot.com/2014/01/from-misc-foods-ai... I remember these being an entire aisle in the grocery store in the 80s. I think they've been replaced by store brands with more colorful packaging

Walmart did this back in 2013 under the Price First label. About 3 years later they dropped it.

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

#95

Post by sroussey »

bsimpson wrote: post #58

It's no accident that popular brand redesigns are usually just fresh coats of paint on their existing visual identity. Apple: lost the rainbow, same silhouette Google: still multicolored wordmark, but in a more modern font BMW: same silhouette, reduced color palette UPS: same colors and composition, simplified shapes Brands are worth money they engender loyalty: people become repeat customers from brands they trust.…

Yes, continuous brand refinement keeps thing modern without breaking the connection to the consumer.

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

#96

Post by codys »

jan_Inkepa wrote: post #80
toss1 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. The "Why?" question gets lost among the impulse to be 'clean and modern'. >>Tropicana’s original packaging had rich colours and a strong visual hierarchy. 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. This same thing happens in everything else too, such as automo…

I wonder if some of the "why" isn't the general turn against straws in the current zeitgeist.

The article indicates the re-design in question was "launched" in January 2008. This is the date where planning the redesign began.

Another article [1] indicates that the new design was deployed on January 8th, 2009, and Tropicana announced a return to the old design on February 23rd, 2009.

A quick search shows an article [2] indicating around 2018 was when the panic around plastic straws began (with, for example, Seattle banning plastic straws starting in July 2018).

So in this case, the plastic straw issue does necessarily appear to be related to the redesign.

1: https://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2015/05/what-to-learn-fro...

2: https://www.eater.com/2018/7/12/17555880/plastic-straws-envi...

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

#97

Post by jjeaff »

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…

I think that fatigue of seeing the same design is real. But I also think that for the most part, company employees, executives are the only people who see the sites frequently enough for it to be a problem.

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

#98

Post by qq66 »

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…

Well sometimes "why" is just to stay current. When I was a kid I thought those dated-looking boxes of "JIFFY" cake mix were actually boxes that nobody had bought and had been sitting there for 30 years.

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

#99

Post by filmgirlcw »

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 mean, as risky and brand and logo redesigns are, there is often a need to want to modernize or revitalize your logo or mark or packaging. It’s more difficult, the larger/older/more iconic your packaging is. That’s why the best logo and branding and packaging redesigns tend to either be the most iterative or have changed early in a product/brand’s lifecycle before he could be too associated with a company.

The Tropicana redesign was a total failure — but there is a story where you could have had a redesign that left essential elements (the orange with the straw at the center), with a slightly updated/modernized logo or typeface, and it could have been successful.

Successful rebrands and redesigns don’t get the same attention as the failures because they are successful. But there are a number that are fairly radical — Airbnb, I was definitely in the camp that hated their new logo and branding at first, but it has worked. Coca-Cola consistently has some of the best adjustments to its logo and packaging, subtle but powerful (New Coke being the exception that absolutely proves the rule). Apple and Microsoft have both had very good redesigns — Apple has used the same logo shape for decades, but it has changed font and color of the logo. Kroger is a more recent example of an exemplary rebrand.

Going too far, and in this case, making your core packaging impossible for buyers to recognize is absolutely a problem and a disaster — but rebranding or updating branding is often a very good thing for a business, especially when it is subtle enough for the consumer to not notice or to just notice that it now looks more elegant or fresher.

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

#100

Post by toast0 »

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…

I've seen some brands where they changed the design, but they have a plan to retrain people. There will be a callback to the old design on part of the packaging, or they use the old packaging but change the name, but on the top corner write 'same great taste as whatever the old name was'. Maybe they wait a few months or even years to confirm that sales didn't fall before they can fully shed the old branding.
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