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.
