Tropicana redesigned its packaging, but it turns out people prefer the old Tropicana packaging (pictured below) over the new, which some say is generic-looking. Could a harsher criticism be leveled?
According to The New York Times, the company is paying attention to its customers complaints and reversing its decision to change.
The PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo is bowing to public demand and scrapping the changes made to a flagship product, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. Redesigned packaging that was introduced in early January is being discontinued, executives plan to announce on Monday, and the previous version will be brought back in the next month.
Also returning will be the longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange from which a straw protrudes. The symbol, meant to evoke fresh taste, had been supplanted on the new packages by a glass of orange juice.
The article also reveals that the research didn’t reveal that a passionate core of Tropicana customers existed. Which is classic.
Naturally, the agency head responsible for the work, which also includes an ad campaign featuring the new packaging, is on the defensive.
“Tropicana is doing exactly what they should be doing,” Peter Arnell, chairman and chief creative officer at Arnell, said in a separate telephone interview on Friday.
“I’m incredibly surprised by the reaction,” he added, referring to the complaints about his agency’s design work, but “I’m glad Tropicana is getting this kind of attention.”
First Facebook, now Tropicana. So much pussy footin’ around.
When you’ve defined your brand for so long on such an iconic image, it’s hard to change, and especially as quickly as Tropicana did. What they should have done is a refresh of their current product, taking the orange with a straw image and surrounding it with newer, cleaner packaging that showed off the orange even more, rather than trying to get rid of it all together. At the very least, they should have kept the orange somewhere on the new packaging, even if it lived on as just an icon or silhouetted logo.
Arnell is responsible for the lame new Pepsi logo too, right? If so, this hack has made a small fortune off of Pepsi, and twice embarrassed the company. Seems like Arnell should spend more time designing versus defending.
The new Arnell design was a disaster from the get-go. Boring graphics and hard to read.
Plus their new snap cap is not secure and can come open with a good shake.
Lastly Tropicana tried to sneak a downsizing on their larger container.
They could not have screwed this up any more if they tried.
Now Pepsi has it’s New Coke. Perhaps they should call the original packaging Tropicana Classic?