Ouch, that's gotta hurt!

Just an update on my post about Tropicana from back in March. Pictured below is the old packaging and the now scrapped rebranded packaging as a visual refresher for people.




I just saw a story on Ad Age about the fallout from that re-branding misstep that saw Tropicana quickly change course and revert to their former packaging in light of consumer complaints.

During the first 2 months of 2009, Tropicana's sales dropped 20% or a loss of about 33 Million in sales. Varieties produced by competitors such as Minute Maid, Florida's Natural, and Tree Ripe all experienced double digit sales growth during the same period.

Now the question being asked is whether or not Tropicana will be able to return to its former market share glory. People that switched over to the competition might find that the product is just as good and feel they have no reason to go back.

Either way, this is quite a cautionary tale for big time brands to consider before drastically altering their packaging. Packaging is just as important a part of the brand as anything else because it serves as the visual trigger for the consumer. If consumers don't see what they expect on the shelves they can easily pick another product.