I first heard about the new Tropicana packaging from a friend of mine who is an extremely busy working mother of two. She told me of her weekly trip to the grocery with her two boys (8 and 2 years old) and how her eyes bugged at the OJ cooler.
“They changed all the packaging!” she said. “And it’s not color coordinated anymore. I’m used to just grabbing the blue one (reduced sugar). I have my two-year old with me. I don’t have time to sit and figure out what’s going on with the orange juice, so I bought the King Soopers brand just to spite Tropicana.”
Granted, there actually is still some color coordination going on for Tropicana (who, incidentally has 18 kinds of orange juice to choose from), but it’s very subtle. In fact, it’s only on the top of the box. In the old packaging, the color keys were about five times larger. Look at the picture below and tell me how well you would notice the colors in a giant cooler with a 2-year old screaming in your ear.
I give Tropicana props for the new look, though. Not only is it clean and simple, therefore making it stand out from the clutter, but it also plays to our psychology (um, neuromarketing*) by attracting us with the look of a generic brand. Basically, we will feel like we are saving money, even though we are not.
And yet, this neuromarketing fails the test with moms and other bloggers. Susan Gunelius over at Brand Curve says, “They’re not fooling anyone. The cheap looking 7-11-esque packaging doesn’t make me feel any better about forking over a whole lot of money so my kids can get their Vitamin C in the morning.”
*Speaking of neuromarketing, Beth and I are gearing up for a full week of it in February. We’ll explain what it is, how it works, and why it matters with plenty of examples and insights from industry professionals. We are even running a few tests of our own. I have Beth on a treadmill right now, hooked up to all kinds of machines, and small animals are randomly jumping out of boxes and shrieking at her. Each of those animals has an ad taped to their back so I can measure Beth’s reaction to them. I’ll let you know the results.
By the way, none of the animals are being harmed. They all volunteered for this and I have their signatures to prove it.
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