Failed Ad Campaign

There has been a lot of hubbub about Tropicana's decision to rebrand their orange juice containers in the store. The result was a 20% loss in sales for a few months before they reverted back to the old design. How did this happen and why?

The old design was well established. Customers have complained that the new brand lacked creativity. It also seemed a bit feminine. I heard one guy say there used to be a lovely girl on the cover. She has shrunk over the years, and finally is no longer displayed.

These things probably do not account for the loss in sales. The old motto that "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to apply here. More importantly, it would seem that no test market runs were done to gauge customer response.

I think there may be some new confusion over the new orange juice containers and the apple juice containers. The colors were more washed out in the new version of the branding. The type was harder to read. It looked like the general brand of orange juice.

This reminds me of the failed New Coke campaign. I bet Tropicana will be hesitant to mess with the magic that currently works for their orange juice. This affected the bottom line heavily. They got lucky in that a return to the old label restored their orange juice sales. You don't always get a chance to recover from such business failure.

The Story of WordPerfect

I have just finished reading the delicious story about WordPerfect as told by an insider. Now I have to link to an online version of the book. It is Almost Perfect by W. E. Pete Peterson.

Mr. Peterson was employee number 6 at WordPerfect. He was one of three members of the Board of Directors. This book tells his story from then time he got hired, until the day he left.

I must confess. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. I used WordPerfect in the early 90's. And I would not say that I was a hard core fan. But I am a fan about inside stories of software companies.

This shout out goes to Mr. Peterson. You penned an awesome book. I bet you are wealthy from selling your stock in the company. But I still clicked through on one of your Google AdSense ads sir.