It seems that Tropicana’s new identity is causing a lot of uproar. The common opinion is that it looks like a discount brand because of the generic photo and overly simplified design. Yet, the product and price seem to be the same as before! This has caused a lot of confusion. People are angry when they browse the juice section with all its options and brands popping out … they can’t locate their old-time favorite … because its incognito! Not to mention hard to read for many.
When I first laid eyes on the new Tropicana carton, I instantly thought of The Byne Group. Then I thought about Pepsi Cola and their new simplified design. I’m always in favor of a cleaner design (we all are at The Byne Group!) … with Target and Apple being the prime examples of big corps. that have done it well. Turns out that Pepsi Corp. has decided to update several of their key products due to decreased sales. This includes Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Gatorade and Tropicana.
The new design was just released in January 2009 and it certainly didn’t last long because Tropicana made a statement this week citing that they will be reverting to the old design.
Even though this seemed to be a crash and burn scenario for Pepsi … I look at it in another way, they got a lot of press coverage and attention over this issue. People were reminded of how much they are connected to Tropicana. And I also applaud them for being brave and trying to do something very different for the industry they are in. Bravo!
New York Times, www,nytimes.com,
“Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging,” Feb. 23, 2009.
Brand New blog, underconsideration.com/brandnew,
“Pepsi Takes the Tropic out of Tropicana,” Feb. 23, 2009.
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2 comments:
I initially speculated on the benefit that Pepsi may have realized by "leaking" their Pepsi logo design, letting the designers and branders of the world argue aloud, and then decide whether to go forward or not. Even if they took a public beating, it's still a lot of valuable word-of-mouth. In the Pepsi Cola case, they're sticking with it I guess. In the case of Tropicana, perhaps we'll see that it didn't hurt all that much?
You might be right but I recently read that they will be abandoning the new packaging
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