A few months ago I went to buy orange juice and found that Tropicana had changed their packaging. It was incredibly frustrating to figure out which carton had no pulp and no pineapple juice or other contaminant. I noticed last week that the old packaging was back. Turns out I missed the whole internet discussion of the bad redesign.
Astuteo describes Eight Major Failures of the Tropicana Redesign.
Fast Company announced Never Mind! Pepsi Pulls Much-loathed Tropicana Packaging. They also mentioned the branding was done by the Arnell Group and point to this 27 page pdf doc, Breathtaking Design Strategy. It's perhaps the dumbest looking document I've ever seen. FC previously said, "It may be one of the most ridiculous things ever perpetrated by somebody calling himself a designer."
There were conspiracy theories on why they redesigned at all. Was it to look like cheaper generic brands? Was it deliberately bad to generate buzz? Regardless, it seems sales fell 20%.
At least I can easily find my orange juice again.
1 comment:
The Tropicana fiasco was highly amusing. I remember seeing the new design and thinking how generic it was, turns out that others thought so too, and stopped buying it in droves.
The good news is that marketing and advertising textbooks have another case study.
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