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Forums > Critiques
Written by Terri Stone on March 2, 2009
In January, Tropicana (part of PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo) unveiled a new package for its Tropicana orange juice products. Public reaction to the packaging was so negative that Tropicana has backpedaled and will return to the old familiar look.
What do you think of the change? Does the original package need a fresher look? And if so, is the rejected redesign the right direction?
Tropicana
In the grocery store people are looking for familiarity. Theirs is NOT the intention to debate orange juice containers. The fact that Tropicana is one of the most expensive OJs also doesn't make this a winner.
And, did I realize at first that the new packaging was of a "wine type glass" of OJ? No, I thought it was an orange blurb. Pepsi got screwed but they deserved it.
And I just read the other day that Pepsico is spending $100 million rebranding their new logo. I really think the shareholders should complain about that. Branding has gotten way out of hand since an awful lot of people I talk to do not care. They buy Pepsi or Coke, end of story. These marketers are pulling a lot of wool over eyes. Has there been an increase in sales? I haven't heard of any. Wasting money while we are in economic doldrums. That's corporate America for you. Clueless still.
packaging
I think the mistake is not placing the orange with the straw on the new package. Maybe it is trite but it is so recognizable. I think the glass is too full! Haha well maybe just to big. The colors are nice and I like the rounded cap.
Tropicana
I'm glad they are going back to the old look. The new look doesn't feel like Tropicana. I thought it was a store brand when I first saw it in the stores.
Tropicana
I rarely comment on this type of thing, but I think their former package IS fresh. What could be fresher than a newly picked orange with morning dew on a simple white background? The new packaging is too reminiscent of a "no name" package.
Change for change sake is
Change for change sake is stupid. There are so many good places to spend money, but if people like something, even just from a comfort point of view, don't mess with it. It doesn't matter how we feel about the new package. If it was a new company, then I might say I like it, as a new statement, but why on earth mess with something people like--something with which they have a familiar feeling and relationship? Especially when it is good. Sometimes good enough is good enough.
From a practical marketing view, my wife wants to be able to pick OJ out of a line-up of 50 competitors in less time than it takes our three children to realize the cart has stopped. Branding is so much more than "looks nice," whether you think this looks nice or not. The final result proved that it is just annoying to change for change sake.
By the way, does someone know who did the first package? I bet they are pretty smug right now!
I like the Orange Cap
I didnt like the new 'rejected' pkg because it looks like "no-name" packaging we have here in Canada...but I did like the orange cap. The previous packaging artwork is what I look for on the fridge racks in the stores. I am a Tropicana drinker "With Lots of Pulp". My only other comment was drop the striped straw and use a solid colour one. Cheers
Tropicana
We thought it was a generic brand. Didn't like it at all. And all the different "flavors" were TOO similar.
When are these stupid companies going to get it. As a consumer, I don't want to have to LOOK for something that I USED TO KNOW was in a certain place (even though they were in the same place). I went to the supermarket with my wife (I usually do the shopping) one day and she was there literally 5 minutes to decipher which carton to get.
Tropicana's New Packaging
I too, was a consumer used to familiarity, and had to take a step back when I saw the new packaging. I only buy three brands of OJ based on taste first and price second. These brands being Tropicana, Florida's Natural and Simply Orange (of which Simply Orange is the most expensive brand where I live).
At first I found Trop's new package rather generic looking, but seeing it side-by-side with the old, I think it's a lot cleaner design. And it also stands out from the similarly cluttered Florida's Natural and Minute Maid labels. It's also easier to distinguish the new Trop from rest when one is in a hurry in the grocery store.
All OJ's do not taste the same, so why should they all look the same? The new packaging reflects the clean, fresh taste that the Tropicana product offers, regardless of the price.
New Look not all that bad
I love the font treatment, and placing, but I wouldn't have gone so far as to remove the orange with a straw in it. I think there is a way to use both, and the image is so strongly branded I'm not sure why you'd want to get rid of it. Other than that, I think it looks fine. The new cap is a nice touch, though it would be interesting to see a design that uses less packaging. I'm not sure what that would be but going green is a good thing all around.
Tropicana Design
Sure the new design is more modern and catchy but what good is a new design if the CUSTOMERS who we want to buy our products ie. 100% Pure & Natural OJ are turned off by the new more modern design?
I may think I have the best design ever but if the client doesn't like it have I helped them or me at all? I say, "Try the new look but don't hang on to it to the loss of your sales revenue. The process isn't the goal it's the result of our design. Sometimes I see advertising so abstract that I come away scratching my head about just what connection the ad has to the product. Cool, yes; productive, I wonder.
Tropicana misdesign
I'm seldom moved to comment on redesigns but since I'm a regular buyer of Tropicana Orange Juice the change had a huge impact on me. I normally buy the pulp-free, calcium added version and it took me literally a minute or two to recognize the different varieties and pinpoint the version I was looking for. I understand that any new design will present a learning curve to the customer but I think this implementation was a miserable step from clearly designed, market communications to obscure, hide-the-brand, hide-the-variety, indulgent design.
I've noticed that Tropicana revises their packaging more often than many other brands. They could have saved a lot of money and trouble by simply sticking with the last interation.
100% Pure
If you want to promote something that is 100% pure, you want a simple picture of the Orange. You do not want a box that has a lot of fine print on one side like it is a cigarette box or there may be something deadly that you do not want most people to read. Get the Orange back. To me it really has the look of generic packaging.
This is New Coke all over again
It's amazing that Pepsi of all people made this mistake. In the 1980's Coke made the same mistake. All blind taste tests showed that people liked Pepsi better. So Coke discontinued Coke and launched New Coke. They lost tons of market share to Pepsi, much of which they still have not regained. It turned out that people didn't buy Coke for the taste. They bought it for the tradition. Coke recovered somewhat by launching "Coke Classic" and eventually phasing out New Coke.
The new carton design might be better, but it divorces itself too greatly from a traditional branding position. A change as big as this should have been test marketed. That alone would have caught the error. There are multiple people who need to lose their jobs here, but the art director is not one of them.
Brazzell Marketing Agency
Home Health Care Marketing
Tropicana and Pepsi
First of all, I realized that I missed my opportunity to rant about the redesigned Pepsi logo: Succinctly, I don't like it and I think it's a step back. It looks like a variation of the previous logo for the sake of doing a variation of the previous logo. The shapes kind of remind me of the Girl Scouts logo (what can I tell you - it just looks that way to me). To my eyes it's not nearly as good as the one it's trying to replace. As far as the logotype goes, I think it's an improvement over the previous version, but just barely. Respectfully, the whole thing looks like a student exercise, and one that didn't hit the mark. It doesn't have any life to it - it just sort of lays there.
The Tropicana packaging, to me, looks almost like generic packaging. The previous packaging has some distinct personality to it in the logotype, the orange with the straw, the secondary typography, etc. The new packaging looks like any logo could be slapped on their and it would look the same: Tropicana, Minute Maid, hell, it could be Safeway. Actually, come to think of it, that's what it looks like - store-branded packaging. And, IMO, the Safeway brand packaging looks a lot better and more distinctive than the new Tropicana packaging. And that's probably not good.
One thing I do like is the cap - looks like it would be easy to grip and unscrew. Nice.
Also, I see in a previous post a reference to a "wine type glass" - I don't think that's a wine glass. It looks like a juice glass you get in a restaurant.
New Tropicana packaging
When I saw this in-store my first impression was it's a new generic brand of OJ. Then I was surprised to see it was Tropicana. Bring back the orange+straw graphic, it's much stronger and defines freshness and 100% natural. Running names sideways is a current trend, nothing extraordinary. The half-orange cap is distinguishing, of course that complements the orange+straw image.
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generic packaging
i have to agree with the people who have said that the new Tropicana packaging looks way too generic...it looks like a "store-brand." much like the new Pepsi packaging.
why did this happen? what comes to mind first is the tendency for management to make decisions and changes because that is their job, no matter if a decision or change is needed or not. this happens especially alot when new management comes in and they feel a need to justify themselves or to "mark" their new territory.
the branding agencies and marketing consultants - when a company comes to a design firm or marketing company for a new look, how many of those companies do you think would advise the client that nothing needs to be done? consultants and designers don't get paid unless they consult and design.....
Tropicana re-design
My son drinks a lot of pulp-free Tropicana. The first time I saw the new package I didn't read it and just thought it was a substitute in the same shelf space. When it finally dawned on me that it was a re-design, I just laughed. I brought it home and went on a mini-tirade to my non-designer husband with a "Can you believe this? It looks like the old generic packaging! And running the brand name up the side is a real legibility problem." followed by "It must've been proposed by the same people who decided Sears was no longer going to have sales." (Anyone remember that marketing blunder from the 80s or early 90s?)
The one positive thing is that we love the new little orange cap.
I also agree about the marketers and re-branding getting way out of hand. It's failed campaigns like this one that show marketers are the ones telling the emperor that the invisible clothes look really good on him, and he buys it because he figures they know more than he does.
Tropicana Packaging
When I saw it in the store I thought it was a cheap generic imitation. The color wasn't even as vivid as the picture on this page. It was pale, washed out and faded. Redesigns are great if they are an improvement, but iconic images require delicate change.
I also had the problem of discerning the different varieties. Came home with Extra C + calcium and got lots of complaints.
This should be a lesson for all designers, new isn't always better.
Faceless modern design
The new design is what seems to be a trend in faceless "modernism". The old design says Tropicana in straight forward terms, it can be picked out in the sea of competitors. The new design could be for any producer, there is no "memorable" quality. This same blank design has been put to use in Gatorade. I went to the store to get my wife some and was looking for the familiar container and was actually standing right in front of it yet couldn't pick it out, its now packaged as G or whatever. Why throw away a solid name like Gatorade or Tropicana and reduce it to an incidental part of the design - crazy.
Tropicana
I think the new packaging is fresh and absolutely made me want to drink a refreshing glass of orange juice. There is almost a transparency to this design, as if the glass of orange juice suggests it is the actual juice within the container peering through. However, I do think the orange and the straw could have been used on the packaging. But as a whole I think the packaging is successfully updated. Could there have been another design solution? Perhaps. Could it have been pushed further? Maybe. But the public has made a fuss because it's SO different visually, reflecting an international design aesthetic, not because the taste has changed. I think the design is good, not excellent, but good.
We are in a dynamic time seen across the globe and with that comes change in various forms. Moral is low for alot of people right now and it's understandable that people will grasp for the familiar in such uncertain times. But one might argue that with so much change happening this would be the perfect opportunity to change package identity. However, I think the bigger question is: Is this the best economic climate for changing a products identity?
-Al
No Frills
I also agree that it has a generic look. When I first saw them in the supermarket, I thought they have been left out in the sun and have faded.
Could this be the results of design by committee or a stubborn client? Would love to hear input from someone at Arnel to shed some light on the process...anonymously if necessary.
Tropican Packaging
Generic Look - Yes. Exacerbated by the vertical type. Western culture people don't easily read anything that is not written left to right. This just reinforces perception that it is a generic.
Tropicana Tradition
Why change something good in the first place?
Waste of money it is. Lower the price of Orange Juice or if you want to do something with the container? Make it larger for the same price.
Tropicana design
I prefer the old as it still remains fresh and identifiable to me
Tropicana packaging change
Losing the straw in the orange image was the biggest mistake here. That image so clearly tells the 100% pure juice story. Plus, an orange is much more appetizing than a glass of yellow liquid. The colour of that juice in the glass reminds me of all the reasons I DON'T like packaged orange juice: acidic, neon yellow colour...it looks no different than the fake stuff.
The next biggest mistake was replacing the phrase "No Pulp" with "Pulp Free". This makes pulp sound like it's a bad thing. You usually use that suffix for negative things, like "hormone-free", "sugar-free", "fat-free", etc.
Nevertheless, the Tropicana wordmark was seriously dated. Get rid of the type-on-a-path arch, replace it with the new wordmark, a straight bottom on the "No Pulp" graphic on top, sans serif fonts overall, and voila! Done.
What ever happened to that
What ever happened to that old adage that if it ain't broke, don't fix it? I have no problem with the old design, which I was used to seeing in the grocery store and readily identified with Tropicana.
Tropicana
One of the things that really made Tropicana really stand out from the competition was the sense of of whimsy exemplified by their straw-in-the0orange motif. This seems to me the reason that the new packaging failed. Tropicana had an actual personality attached to it in the minds of consumers, a gentle, whimsical personality we would actually like to spend time with. The new package clearly says "None of that matters, it's just orange juice, stupid!". Not only is the new packaging aggressively bland, it has the feel of a direct insult from someone we felt was a friend. Isn't maintaining that emotional connection, however illusory, what branding is supposed to be all about?
Tropicana
I had a conversation regarding Branding with a client just yesterday. Branding is so much more than a look, package or logo. However, these things are representations of the Brand and therefore should be carefully considered when changing. The problem that is rampant in advertising today (and this illustrates it) is that people are quick to change for change sake (mentioned in an above post). I'd suggest that many of the "new designs" and "new looks" are simply what they are - "new". There is little thought given to the actual true marketing of the product. What does it stand for? Why is this product more desirable that the competitors product? What benefit does it have for me the consumer? All of these things shape how I feel about the product and if actually delivered on when I consume the product, a Brand is formed. It's time to take a few lessons from the "old farts" in advertising and understand why the font/graphic is what it is and where it is. Not just thrown on the page or turned for on it's side for "arts sake". You'd think after the dot com boom/bust we'd have learned that lesson. Just because you have the tools, does mean you know how to use them. Experience does count for something. And in this case, it costs as well.
Tropicana
I'm not surprised the new packaging was rejected. When my wife (a graphic designer) and I (a photographer) saw it in the supermarket, we thought it was some generic house-brand OJ. It is such a bland, generic look, who in their right mind would have chosen it. Oh, and I'm not surprised it came from Peter Arnell. I had the unfortunate circumstance to work with him years ago (Arnell-Bickford) on a Hanes packaging shoot. I'm surprised people use him for packaging.
Tropicana packaging
I like the clean, streamlined look of the new Tropicana packaging, but the vertical type IS difficult to read, I would think especially so in a crowded display case, and the design does have something of a faceless, generic look. The rounded orange-shaped cap is a nice touch. It references the origin of the juice and probably has a comfortable ergonomic feel. By contrast, the current package design is a little busy and dated, but it does retain a certain warm, home-iness that alludes to memories/fantasies of hearth and home and breakfast with the entire family around the table. Perhaps most importantly regarding the new packaging, where's the orange from which the juice is made? Seems like visually referencing the source of the juice would have been high up in the design brief. Personally, I'd love to be buying Tropicana orange juice, no matter what the packaging looked like. Unfortunately, my budget does not allow it, even when times were good. Maybe Tropicana, Minutemaid and the rest of them could better expand their market share and presence by reducing their prices instead of spending corporate resources redesigning perfectly acceptable packaging.
New Packaging...
Funny, when I 1st noticed the new package I thought is this a cheaper line of OJ for Tropicana (like GAP vs. Old Navy) then 2nd thought after closer examination was...did a student win a contest? And wow, that was the best design, really??
Totally a failed revamp of something that didn't need changing...and in these economical times? Insane!
BUT I do agree its easier to read up then down (no need for head shifting, go ahead and compare..see if you don't do the head tilt!)
Its the straw
While I actually like some features of the new design ... the wrap of the image around the box, the clean typography..., the advertising point that was missed was that the new design does not fit the identity established by the previous ad campaign. The straw-in-the-orange was definitely a playful and successful image that stuck. The new design should have kept the playful concept and image components that folks identified with. I can imagine several possibilities with these elements.
New Packaging
The new packaging is so bland the product doesn't stand out on the shelf anymore.
Tropicana forgets customer
Pepsico bought “good design” but forgot the consumer. This is the kind of gridded, type-standardized, “Swiss” packaging system we implemented in the late 60’s at JCPenney. It made sense for Penney’s because there were eighteen private labels and the overall brand name (“JCPenney”) was lost. This worked because there were no competative brands in the store and it was important that the merchandise have a mid-priced look. In a supermarket, there’s a circus of graphic noise screaming for attention. The new package looks like the generic store brand, a cheaper product--but it’s as expensive as ever.
The old packaging is better in almost every way: bolder, more legible logo, richer color. Dropping the strong, iconic straw-in-the-orange is lunacy. The orange panel at the top, indicating “NO PULP”, reflects a system by which other forms of the the product were color coded-- “LOW ACID”, ‘SOME PULP”, etc. --each had their own color. Shoppers like myself became familiar with the Tropicana product we preferred and just grabbed it; the process didn’t require a careful reading of the carton.
On the plus side, the new package saying “not from concentrate” is important to the consumer. Also, I like homey, pre-modernist cap.
Tropicana Packaging
It saddens me that Tropicana is pulling the plug on their new Orange Juice packaging.
When I first saw it, it kind of threw me off. Because I wasn't sure it was their orange juice at first. But after the initial shock wore off, I really liked the look of the new packaging. Simple, yet an image that is catchy and rememberable. I even thought the little orange cap was a cool design.
What I am seeing here with all the above posts is exactly what I see almost daily in my area. The "fearful of change" consumers are preventing corporate America again in using its "truly" creative forces. To create the cost effective designs that will sell and help keep the costs of producing the packaging down. Thus allowing the company to keep the cost of the product lower and being able to afford to pay their employees and stay in business.
I have been a designer first and along the way worked in the prepress business world for 25 years. And personally, some of the crap that is being designed today is just repulsive and completely detrimental to the business world surviving. The designs that designers are creating today are becoming too costly in production, and sales. Every designer thinks that each package, logo, or any other type of media for that matter needs to be a Michelangelo Sistine Chapel work of art to sell today. No, it doesn't!
For any product to have its branding and graphics to sell, it must be eye catching and an image that creates an etched visual in our minds. The most effective of these are plain simple images. If there it too much going on, a consumer can get lost and forget the product.
A good example, what websites do you find yourself spending the most time at? The websites that are flashing bright colors and images at you vying for your attention? Or the plain solid color with possibly a subdued simple design or pattern?
Still don't believe this thought process? Think of every business that has an image etched into your mind. Simple, or busy? (McDonald's arch, DirecTV, Adobe, Kodak) I bet when I mentioned everyone of those companies a plain and simple image came to your mind first. Not a bunch of flashy designs.
In today's society, we all have enough of stress and anxieties in our lives. It's about time we go with the simple things in our lives and live with the things that make their point with a nice simple mage that is soothing, yet rememberable.
The Usual Mistake(s)
I would love to hear tapes of the presentation meeting and the ensuing debate. I'm sure it would be a great case study in design BS and a client whose product isn't as "cool" as the client believes they (personally) are...
What is the multiple in terms of personality of the old package vs. the design school exercise that was supposed to replace it - 2X, 3X, maybe 100X?!?! And as far as the too cute by half cap ("We believe the new cap and associated leaf graphic projects the brand's natural and "fun" profile to the brief's targeted youth demo") does anyone over 65 or with arthritis, perhaps, purchase this product?
This reminds me of my days in magazines (NYC in the 80's) and many, many mastabatory markup sessions with editors and ADs who couldn't separate their jobs as communicators with their visits to MOMA.
Looks like things haven't changed, except now we have a design brief and a $100K re-branding fee...progress.
I read this thread with
I read this thread with interest because I noticed the new design at the store recently. Strangely, it didn't elicit a strong response either way—it wasn't the best redesign I've seen, but it was far from the worst.
When I see the old design next to the new one, however, I can see why people prefer it. The orange really does pop and the straw is a nice touch.
But with this thread in mind, I went to the grocery store tonight and I have to say, I agree with suejasper: Florida's Natural and MM both have packaging that's similar to the old Tropicana, and I imagine that is why they decided on a redesign.
I guess the new design fails for many of the above-mentioned reasons, but I can certainly see why they decided to move away from the old one (even though it works on its own).
Stunt
The new design is so clearly inferior that the whole redesign process was almost certainly a deliberate stunt to gain publicity and provide an opportunity to 'reintroduce' the original more cosy, more familiar brand and look.
"forget me"
the new package design: good try in getting invisible and forgotten
Tropicana
I can not believe that anyone who has actually seen this package in the supermarket would prefer it over the old package. The picture that is shown above makes the glass look like a very saturated color, but in reality it did not print like that and it looks SO washed out. It doesn't even look like orange juice, which should have be addressed before it hit the shelves. The package went way too far away from the original. I actually thought that my supermarket was no longer carrying Tropicana which is my sons favorite oj, until I realized that they had a new package.
My initial thought was that they were trying to reflect how people were feeling about the economy. Going to a much less "flashy" package to let consumers know they understood their feelings. The funny thing is that I thought that Pepsi was going down that same direction with their new logo and package design. Then I found out they were both done by the Arnell group. Maybe that is just the new direction for Arnell. 0 for 2 as far as I'm concerned.
How I would do it
In a way, I agree with kprutzman, but there are less dramatic ways to change a brand's image. Just remember that the "old" package that we see here is not THAT old. It uses the same layout as the older packaging (before the PepsiCo acquisition) but with serif typefaces instead of a Roman-esque Copacabana look, solid colors instead of bevels and gradients, and a solid white background. I think the next version should be a hybrid between the retired new look and the older: KEEP the orange and straw, DITCH the vertical logo layout, KEEP the new typefaces, DITCH the glass (or put it in the back) and DEFINITELY KEEP the new cap. Just my two cents.