New Tropicana

I haven’t been the only one disappointed with the new Tropicana box redesign. It’s a bad design change for many, many, many reasons (8 specific reasons, actually). If you can believe it, they actually had to make a website to help you find the damn stuff in the store. And that, right there, is why the redesign sucks.

For two weeks I was looking for Tropicana orange juice to buy, and wasn’t able to find it. I thought it odd that the grocery store would stop stocking Tropicana, and instead replace it with a giant shelf-full of generic, but hey, it’s tough times. I know grocery store margins are razor thin, and if it makes more sense for a store to stop stocking premium OJ and instead sell generic, who am I to question their business model. And then mom points out that the “generic” OJ I’ve been ignoring, that’s the New Tropicana.

I say New Tropicana, because like New Coke, they’ve taking something smart and simple and beautiful and utterly ruined it. No longer is it the premium OJ worth paying the little extra for, it’s just expensive generic. No longer does does the label make intuitive sense, you’re gonna have to break out your reading glasses now. No longer does the box scream Premium Healthy Natural Fruity Deliciousness, now it’s just another white industrial box. And it’s impossible to tell which damned thing is what from any distance longer then 6 inches from your face.

Buying OJ shouldn’t be this hard. Buying ANYTHING shouldn’t be this hard. You should see it, and tell from a glance if it’s that thing you want and love. Anything more complex then that is Branding FAIL. Pepsie may have changed their stupid ying yang, but it’s still there front and center.  What Tropicana has managed to do is unbrand their product. WTF?!