Brand Loyalty

In class we discussed the importance of brands, like the widely recognizable ipod advertisement, because as Sturken and Wright explains "consumers create deep, sometimes emotional, connections to their brands." (291) Earlier in the year the PepsiCo company who owns Tropicana for a while now hired a term of creative designers to repackage the Tropicana brand. The old design as you can see is the recognizable a plump orange dead center with a straw stuck to it, giving the convincing argument that the juices in the cartoon are straight out of the fruit. Mr. Campbell, the creative director in charge of redesigning this classic brand decided to go with a modern perspective. His concept was known as "squeeze" meaning the orange juice in the cartoon is squeezed right out the fruit. With this in mind, he decided a glass of orange juice with a white clear background for the cartoon, not only producing a pure content effect but hoping the white background will serve to eliminate any doubts of impurities. Brands are not only about repackaging, as it includes "look of packaging, the typeface of package and ad print, and product, packaging and ad design concept and language, as well as the content and form of the product itself." (289) Campbell along with the newly repackaged cartoon constructed a full on campaign for Tropicana orange juice. His ads featured not the juice it self but mother and child hugging lovingly and intimately while holding up a glass of orange juice. As he had stated in an advertisement conference, he hoped that the concept of Tropicana as a drink shared among loved ones. a juice squeezed from love would resonate with the consumers.

Not only did consumers not understand his concept but many criticized it as being ugly and thus loosing faith in the product. They claimed that the repackaging made Tropicana look like generic brand juices, despite standing out from all the other color cartoons with fruits on them. It's interesting to see how much a brand is so embedded into our everyday social and cultural lives that a simple repackaging will cause such a negative effect. It is true as I was initially dissappointed in the change,but I did like the concept of the "squeeze" from love. Designers should have known that a staple brand like Tropicana cannot withstand a drastic change. Designers for the Parmalait milk brand was smart enough to gradually change the packaging of the product because they know that by marketing a classic traditional brand as a new product would shock consumers in an odd way.

There was one good thing that came out of this whole project, Campbell has successfully maintained one part of his design: the cap in the shape of an orange slice. Small minute details do not destroy the original value of the brand to its consumers, while details help gain better appreciate. (I loved that the red bull tab has a small cut out shape of a bull). It was a big waste of efforts on PepsiCo's part to have wasted thousands of dollars only to receive such a small redesign, but at least Pepsi's redesigned logo worked out well. (For the most part as least, I've seen online that some amateur designers redrew the new Pepsi logo as a fat man in a red shirt and blue pants, signifying that drinking Pepsi will make you obese.) Branding seems to be such a tough job, at first to create a value with the daily lives of consumers from their social modes to cultural values, and then maintaining a certain status while adhering to changing times.