peter arnell's remarks on the launch of tropicana packaging

Offered without additional comment is a transcript of the Ad Age video of Peter Arnell from Omnicom's Arnell Group introducing the (now pulled) Tropicana packaging back in January.

We started on a journey approximately five months ago to try to give a new refreshed, a new energy to Tropicana. We thought it would be very very important to bring this brand, to evolve it to a more current or modern state. Emotionally it was very very difficult, and it still remains difficult for everyone to grasp the importance of that change because it's so dramatic.

Historically we always showed the outside of the orange. What was fascinating was that we had never shown the product called the juice. There was a strong drive to bring big messaging on to the carton where the biggest single billboarding was.

Having said that we wanted to take the orange and put it somewhere. We engineered this interesting little squeeze cap here (which you guys can come up and see after) so that the notion of squeezing the orange was implied ergonomically every day when you actually went to the actual carton. The skin of the orange is replicated on the cap, and tooled in to the cap. The idea, of course, is to have a consistency between the purity of the juice (which is coming directly from the orange), the cap (which you squeeze every day), and, of course, the carton.

The reason why that's all important is because, of course, "squeeze" also maintains a certain level of power when it comes to this notion emotionally about what "squeeze" means -- like "my squeeze" or "gimme a squeeze" or the notion of a hug, or the ideas behind the power of love and the idea of transferring that love, or converting the attitude between mom and the kids, right?

Comments

[David Wertheimer]

Peter makes a good point. Show us the juice, sure! But he doesn't discuss why he took the logo and product descriptions and made them indecipherable. And we know how that turned out.

Further thoughts on this (self-link): http://www.netwert.com/ideapad2/2009/02/tropicana_and_branding.html

[Michael Sippey]

Sure, show us the juice. And I don't have an argument with the "Squeeze" positioning.

But as you point out, David, what I think his talk demonstrates is the complete disconnect between the brand design work that they were doing and the nuts and bolts of how busy people scan the aisles to find the product they need to get it in their cart as quickly as possible so they can get the frak out of the grocery store. (Preaching to the choir here, I know.)

Here's the other thing -- it sounds like from the intro to his remarks, that it was an "emotionally difficult" process to make the "dramatic" change, that there were people second guessing what was happening...

I just had to get this transcript down for posterity's sake, because I have no idea how long AdAge keeps their videos around, plus there's no transcript anywhere else for the Googlebot to discover.

[Jon]

It's amazing that it took 5 months to systematically dismantle everything that was working for the brand, and then in the end... the only surviving element of change is the screw-cap.

Some lesson's learned here: http://limina-ao.com/blog/2009/03/25/ux-for-breakfast-brand-vs-usability/

[Jeff Halmos]

Agencies need to have the wherewithal to tell clients that things don't need to be changed, when they don't need to be changed. Tropicana's ID was fun. The straw in the orange said more than showing the juice in a wine glass. The wordmark had life to it. And it was laid out so you could read it. Krypse.

[JF]

" We engineered this interesting little squeeze cap here (which you guys can come up and see after) so that the notion of squeezing the orange was implied ergonomically every day when you actually went to the actual carton.
"

You know what that is: Just complete BS. The way the average person interprets: A lame, throwaway, marketing gimmick that just makes their juice seem more commercialized.

Hey Pete! You're an advertising guy--stop trying to incorporate pseudo-intellectualism into it!

[Phil]

Heh. As a consumer (with some background in creative) I never made the connection between the little orange cap and "squeezing." Far too subtle for me.

A consumer's interaction with the brand in the store lasts five seconds. Maybe fifteen as you try and remember whether the family likes "pulp" or "no pulp".

For me the Tropicana brand simply means that I can trust that the juice is consistently better quality. I identify the carton by the color of the type and of the orange. Frankly I couldn't tell you if the picture of the orange is naturalistic or stylized. I don't put a lot of thought into what the orange means. I'm not tuning into "the messaging" from "the billboarding" that Tropicana is like squeezing the pure natural flavor from a ripe juicy orange. Ijust know that Tropicana isn't weak, bitter or watery like some of the commodity orange juices.

My first thought on seeing the new redesign in the store was "wow, it looks like store brand." My second thought was a reaction to the color...it looked like the weak, watery and bitter juices that I try and avoid. The color was too yellow, not orange enough. The Tropicana green seems too yellow as well.

And that's about as much thought as I put into it. I bought Tropicana because it was on my list. If there had been another brand of juice with brighter colors on the label, I might just as easily have bought that.

(The new Tropicana is in a wine glass...I'm supposed to notice this?)

[Michael Sippey]

I'm with you about the squeezing of the cap top. Waaaay too subtle; and the justification from Arnell felt like they were trying way too hard.

[Lis]

Not to mention, a rounded cap is impractical. Rolls around when you set it down to actually pour the juice...

Fail on all counts.

[mdh]

Squeeze is also what you do to a zit. yum.

just sayin'

[mdh]

I have to agree, especially about 'too yellow'.