I was recently at the grocery store with my boyfriend when he noticed that Tropicana orange juice (owned by Pepsi) had a new look. Here’s an image of the new carton, found at the NYT:
Burk hated the new design. Loathed. Expressed his horror at length. He thought it was ugly and looked like a generic orange juice brand. I agreed that it looked a little generic but didn’t have a lot of other thoughts about it. It didn’t have any impact on our shopping patterns regardless, since neither of us drink orange juice (but give me some Tang and I’m a happy, happy girl; my great-grandma used to make a simple powdered-sugar frosting and added Tang mix to it so it was Tang-flavored, so I have very happy memories of Tang. Excellent on yellow or lemon cake. Pink lemonade mix works too.).
Anyway, it turns out lots of people shared Burk’s reaction–they absolutely hated the new carton. And they cared enough to actually contact the company and complain. As a result of all the complaints, Tropicana will be going back to the original design:
What struck me about this was two things: First, the power of consumers. When we think about the food system (or clothing, or whatever), clearly meatpackers, grocery stores, big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, etc., have tremendous power, and consumers often feel powerless to affect a system that may not bring them the type or quality of food products they prefer to feed their families. And yet moments like this indicate that consumers can force companies to change. We saw something similar in the late 1990s: when lots of people got on the South Beach and Atkins diet, many restaurants started adding low-carb options to their menus to avoid losing customers (Subway particularly jumped on this bandwagon). If enough consumers make it clear that they will stop purchasing a company’s products, they can make those companies change. We aren’t powerful individually–Tropicana wouldn’t have cared if just I wrote in about a concern–but we can be powerful collectively.
The second thing that struck me, though, is what we get upset enough about to actually contact companies and demand change. Out of all the problems with our modern food system–the health of the food we buy, environmental impacts of production practices, conditions of agricultural workers, food contamination, etc.–most of the time we really don’t demand that companies do anything about it (unless there’s a crisis like the peanut butter contamination issue*). As a foodie, it’s a little depressing to think that people in general may be more concerned about the design of their orange juice carton than in thinking about what’s inside the carton.
* For you “Battlestar Galactica” fans: last night I had a very involved dream in which I realized that the peanut butter contamination problem had been a cylon plot to kill us.
Comments 23
Sociological Images » TROPICANA ORANGE JUICE CARTON PROTESTS — February 27, 2009
[...] Sociological Images » TROPICANA ORANGE JUICE CARTON PROTESTS [...]
pj — February 27, 2009
Caring more about the look of the package than what's in it --- hmm....
As long as you're a pretty girl, nothing else about you matters.
As long as you live in a huge house, it does not matter that you cannot afford it. (And that you will help to bring the whole economy down.)
Sounds American to me!
emfole — February 27, 2009
This is a VERY TANGIBLE change...this is a change that people can SEE every time they look at the OJ container. I'm sure that has something to do with it. We can be TOLD that something is "fair trade" or "organic" but we can't actually see these...
Katt — February 27, 2009
Did anyone else notice how the ad at the top is comparing Tropicana to breasts? "Squeeze, it's a natural." Which is really strange with it's being combined with an image of a father holding his child. Is it just me or am I reading way too much into this? And if it is true, this is definitely not the first time women have been compared to food.
Kit — February 27, 2009
What does that tag even mean? "Squeeze, it's a natural." The tagline makes no grammatical sense nor does it say anything about the product.
ElleDee — February 27, 2009
I'm a designer, so this is the kind of stuff I talk about all the time and invariably find out that no one else even notices that stuff, much less has an opinion about it. So I'm very, very surprised that so many people 1) noticed 2) had an opinion 3) actually hated it and 4) complained. But, hey, there's a first time for everything.
I actually had a conversation with my fiance about the new Tropicana packaging the other day and we both thought it was an improvement. The new design is (was?) clean and fresh and modern and refined. It had a more upscale feel to it, almost like the brand had gentrified, only without actually costing more. McDonald's is trying to do the same thing and Pepsi has undergone a related kind of package design, though I think that one is a misstep. It looks nice, but it doesn't look like Pepsi.
oliviacw — February 27, 2009
One thing I really appreciated about the new packaging was that the orange cap was actually a little hemisphere, textured to resemble in some way an actual orange. And there were little green leaves peeking out from under it on the package. I hope they bring that element back in their next design.
Jay Livingston — February 27, 2009
Katt, you may think about breasts when you see an orange juice carton with the words squeeze and natural, but I think that the idea Tropicana wants to convey is that what's inside the carton is like fresh-squeezed orange juice and not like something from some chemically treated concentrate. Tropicana doesn't really taste like fresh squeezed --fresh squeezed is so much better-- but that's the impression they're trying to create.
easyVegan.info » Blog Archive » easyVegan Link Sanctuary, 2009-02-27 — February 27, 2009
[...] Sociological Images: TROPICANA ORANGE JUICE CARTON PROTESTS [...]
daniel — February 27, 2009
The redesign coincided with a change in quantity of their small sized jug.
Village Idiot — February 27, 2009
The horror probably comes from the broken symmetry of the glass pictured on the carton when viewed from certain angles. It's wrapped around the corner which screws up the perspective, and some folks can't stand that sort of thing.
The orderly, analytical, and symmetrical part of me is definitely irritated by that wrong-looking glass of orange juice, but the chaotic, intuitive, and asymmetrical part of me doesn't even notice and just checks the price.
That said, the fact that the appearance of orange juice cartons is what galvanizes 'consumers' to demand change just means the label 'consumer' has finally percolated into our subconscious. We used to be "Citizens," now we're "consumers." We consume, "they" produce, and how they produce is not our concern but how our consumables look on our counters is.
anna — February 28, 2009
i agree with the first comment. why, why, does anyone care?
Burk — March 1, 2009
For the record I hate the new Pepsi logo too.
Beth Younger — March 2, 2009
Interesting thread and comments. What I think is that the original logo design replicates and reinforces heterosexual intercourse--the straw pierces the juicy orange, etc. and thus has a phallogocentric function. Perhaps the new design is less masculine. All hail the phallus!
greg — March 2, 2009
What I find strange is that you consider yourself a foodie, yet love Tang.
Laura Norén — March 3, 2009
I love the new design and have been happy to see it in stores. The carton design is cleaner and does a better job of communicating the notion that Tropicana is simple - just a dew covered orange that's been squeezed (and of course by dew I really mean pesticide, but that's not a marketable feature). The array of cartons in the store can be displayed so that the glass does not appear to break across the fold, which is clever as is the leaf poking out from under the orange cap as another commenter has mentioned.
The new Pepsi logo, on the other hand, is anything but clever because all they did was copy the Obama campaign. Blatant plagiarism is just not a good way to go.
Good Stuff on the Internet: Sociological Images « Found Connections — March 7, 2009
[...] Graphic design and how to visually convey data, [...]
Anonymous — June 4, 2009
"As a foodie, it’s a little depressing to think that people in general may be more concerned about the design of their orange juice carton than in thinking about what’s inside the carton."
ummmm....is it orange juice? yeah, i think that orange stuff in there is orange juice.
G — July 7, 2009
Pepsi could care less how the 'more refined' (a subjective term. I would calll you all snobs, personally) among us view the change. Sales plunged 20% overnight. ~$33 million dollars gone, on top of paying for Arnell's aesthetically pleasing rose-tinted glasses. End of story. There's no other way of possibly spinning this other than an epic branding disaster.
People detest the packaging, but just as importantly they were also confused by it. Many simply bought the old design because they were comfortable with the product. It wasn't a conscious choice. The straw and orange were ubiquitous, and though they didn't display the actual juice, it aroused an almost automatic thought of it from previous experience. When the design changed, the allegiance and trust/familiarity went with it. Consumers were forced to think and choose a brand, or move on. A simple consumer focus test would have shown this immediately.
Design, I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine, id. I'm sorry you were stood up by Arnell's super ego.
John — July 13, 2009
The real story is that Tropicana reduced the amount of juice in the container.
The 16 ounce carton is now 14 ounces. Same price.
I believe the 64 ounce size now features less juice, too. Same price.
Irma Alfaro — October 13, 2009
My family and I have been drinking the tropicana orange juice for ages. I always get the 64ozs. 100% orange juice with no pulp. But recently I have seen a difference in the quality. It seems very very diluted, just very concentrated. I am very disappointed at Tropicana owned my Pepsi for deceiving me and my family. I will no longer buy this juice and would have to find another better quality product. I called the company twice complaining about this and they always give me the same story about the oranges not getting enough rain or something like that. Which does not make sense to me. I will no longer buy this product. I will find another company that will provide a better quality product and that is 100% real orange juice.
wil — February 8, 2010
As Village Idiot said, I think the strong reaction is related to the broken-looking glass of orange juice seen from an angle. It looks like it should be spilling all over the floor, and though we're not always consciously aware of it, images like that cause mental stress. Also the juice comes out at the viewer on a corner -- combined with the visual suggestion of broken glass, this suggests sharp, dangerous orange juice, perhaps filled with pieces of broken glass. I do think it's sad that a)we are consumers and not citizens and b)that as consumers these are the sorts of advertising decisions that get changed and not, far too often, misogynistic or racist advertisements. However I'm very sympathetic to the notion that something that visually implies immediate physical harm or danger will be more viscerally disturbing to more people than just about any other kind of image. It's like when Oppenheim's Fur-Lined Teacup was first shown, a little. People actually got sick when they saw it, because they weren't yet inoculated against that particular image of unpleasantly crossed sensory allusions. Now that it's like the most famous surrealist sculpture ever, we're pretty unshocked by it. But no one was expecting Tropicana to offer them up a nice tall drink of glass-shard-orange-juice.
Jeanie — September 10, 2011
Please don't continue to put Tropicana in those plastic bottles. Stay with the cardboard!