Lucy Stephenson

Tropicana juice recreated their packaging in 2008/2009, giving its juice boxes a new design, less familiar with customers. Rebranding and Redesigning their product that was already a competitor in the eyes of consumers was a bad idea. The new package has seen absolute failure in supermarkets. Tropicana sales dropped by 20% after the new packaging was  introduced. (Zmuda, 2009)

What drew me to this article, is the reason why previously loyal customers suddenly became disloyal and started to buy Tropicana’s competitors juices, such as Minute Maid or Florida’s Natural. One thing that instantly comes to mind, is that consumers would believe that the change in packaging also means a change in the product. Because the outside is no longer the same, neither is the inside. While this is an abrupt assumption, it is a common one that was made.

Whats more is that the size of the ‘Tropicana’ name on the front of the box has been reduced. This makes the ‘100% Orange’ stand out bigger on the box, allowing the brand name to be overlooked. (Huba, 2009) The reason people previously bough Tropicana juice is because they like it the way it is. Due to the new packaging, the thing that they previously recognised as the thing they liked, is different, therefore it isn’t the same thing that they liked anymore.

It was a bad decision on Tropicana’s account to change their packaging, and once sales plummeted after just 2 months, they quickly reintroduced the old tropicana boxes once again.

While it is surprising that sales would decrease by such a large extent, it is understandable as a common customer in a supermarket, looking for the usual groceries, if they are not there, you must settle for something else.

Nisen, Max. “This Logo Change Caused Tropicana Sales To Plunge.”Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 03 Sept. 2013. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/tropicana-packaging-change-failure-2013-9>.

Jackie, Huba. “”The Tropicana Effect”” Jackie Huba. N.p., 2 Mar. 2009. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://jackiehuba.com/2009/03/tropicana-learns-hard-lesson-of-not-talking-to-evangelists.html>.

Zmuda, Natalie. “Tropicana Line’s Sales Plunge 20% Post-Rebranding | News – Advertising Age.” Advertising Age News RSS. AdAge, 2 Apr. 2009. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://adage.com/article/news/tropicana-line-s-sales-plunge-20-post-rebranding/135735/>.

Male, Bianca. “10 Major Rebranding Disasters And What You Should Learn From Them.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 07 Apr. 2010. Web. 01 Oct. 2014. <http://www.businessinsider.com/rebranding-failures-2010-3?op=1>.