Tropicana abandons new packaging; Twitter is the new focus group medium.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/business/media/23adcol.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

by tptacek • 17 years ago

27 14 17 years ago

tptacek• 17 years ago

So yeah this is more interesting to me because I geek out on brand design (and I actually liked the new Tropicana stuff here), but some really good material here about how BigCo's are using the net to react faster to customers.

lsb• 17 years ago

When I think of Twitter, "focus" isn't the word that comes to mind.

A focus group seems like an artificial channel; you can't possibly hear what 100k people are saying about your product, so you pick 200 and you hope it's a random sample. But you can read what 100k people are writing, with good enough algorithms, so it'll be easier to gauge the Twitter zeitgeist on topics (like the election), if there is a zeitgeist at all. Gave a thousand samples out in a city and no one comments? That might be a interesting result in and of itself.

trjordan• 17 years ago

Is there no thought given to the sample bias this incurs? Twitter is definitely not a cross-section of nearly anybody's customers...

teej• 17 years ago

Exactly. Listening to only loud people in an isolated echo-chamber is a great example of listening to the wrong people. Especially when those people might not even be your customers.

old-gregg• 17 years ago

How does it work? People actually choose to follow Tropicana? Or, more generally, how's Twitter valuable for marketers if in order to deliver your messaging you've got to persuade your customers to "follow" you first?

Why would I want to follow Nike or even BMW?

P.S. Perhaps I'm just an 'untwittery type' - I find it hard to believe people actually use Twitter, period. I've tried and my response to 99% of tweets has always been "why would I care?" - if you're into assembling random facts about lives of strangers, just watching them in a cafe or on a busy town square is way more fun.

paulgb• 17 years ago

It looks like @tropicana isn't even owned by the brand. Most likely, they searched twitter for "tropicana", as many brands seem to do. If the company replies to the user from another account, it should show up even if that user is not following @pepsico or whatever (depending on the user's options).

pchivers• 17 years ago

I actually like the new Tropicana packaging (as shown at the top of the article). It looks more hip and healthy, like something that would be sold at Whole Foods, as opposed to the old packaging, which strikes me as more nostalgic (e.g. "Your Father's Orange Juice").

scott_s• 17 years ago

My first thought was it's (what is commonly called) a web 2.0 aesthetic.

tmilewski• 17 years ago

I REALLY liked the new packaging. I actually bought one simply because of that.

Now wouldn't that be considered a win for PepsiCo?

ja2ke• 17 years ago

I'm not a fan. The new packaging looks like it contains a liquid I should be pouring in my washing machine, not my mouth.

iamwil• 17 years ago

I'd have to agree with you there. It reminded me of some freshness and they did some good for the packaging, in my opinion. I might just go out and get a carton myself, for posterity, since they're discontinuing it.

It kinda reminds me of how when facebook changes its interface, people bitch and moan, for about a month, and then, they kinda just forget what it was like before.

This thing with tropicana just sounds like people resisting change, for tradition's sake, rather than evaluating the new thing on its own merits.

apgwoz• 17 years ago

Definitely agree that they should return to the previous packaging as since it all looks the same, it's easy to get annoyed. However, the most recent carton I bought had a cool little orange shaped cap which I hope they keep.

nkurz• 17 years ago

I have one of the new packages in front of me (bought by a friend), and I have to say that there is not a single thing that I like about it. It's hard to read (text is sideways), vacuous ("Drink in the spirit of the morning"), and the juice pictured looks sickly and pale. The most readable text, and hence the part my eye is drawn to, reads "Some Pulp". At best, it looks like a weak imitation of a high-end store brand.

I'm left with two questions:

First, why would Tropicana choose to change their existing strong brand to this, rather than launching this as a side-brand under a new name and testing the market? To my limited knowledge, there are probably the strongest brand in orange juice in the US. I don't see why they would take this risk.

Second, it sounds like many people here and elsewhere actively like the new look. Others, such as me, do not. I have to presume that I'm in the minority, otherwise the consumer resistance would have turned up during Tropicana's user testing. Any ideas on why what underlies the divide between the presumed majority who like the new design and the curmedgeonly minority such as myself?

mhb• 17 years ago

I agree, except that I think the orange-shaped cap is very appealing - in the same spirit as the arrow in the Fedex logo. If they had changed only the cap, that would have been clever.

Tropicana abandons new packaging; Twitter is the new focus group medium.

Related Stories