The Need to Assess Needs

In 2008 and 2009, Tropicana partnered with famous branding expert Peter Arnell and his firm to implement a rebrand of their iconic packaging and design attributes. In a world of quickly changing design trends and an emerging preference for round typefaces and minimalism, Tropicana is certainly not alone in its desire for innovation and change: companies like Pepsi (which also worked with Arnell), Smuckers, and even PetSmart have taken similar steps to rebrand themselves. However, Tropicana may be alone, or at least extraordinarily notable, in the unique disaster that followed its rebranding.

Arnell made several changes to Tropicana’s existing branding, most of which seem to revolve around one central innovation: he changed the cap of the carton to resemble a physical orange, with the aim of giving people the sensory experience of squeezing an orange to open the container. While that in itself is an interesting, novel idea, as noted by many other design publications on the matter, it failed to stand out as an innovation on its own. Visually, the cap of an orange juice carton takes up such a small amount of space on its overall packaging that it is almost impossible to rely only on the cap to capture the attention of passers-by—I personally didn’t even notice the cap until I took a good, hard look at the rebranded carton, and I imagine a typical shopper in a grocery store might not be given to so closely scrutinizing the products in the juice aisle. The rest of the rebrand, though, is where the true problem lies: all of the distinctive features of the Tropicana brand were removed in favor of a glass of juice, nestled among a backdrop of minimalist white. The name of the brand was relegated to the side, turned ninety degrees on its head in such a way that the eye simply glances off of it rather than really taking in what it says.

Different designers have different theories as to what Arnell was trying to accomplish. Some believe he was trying to set Tropicana apart from its competitors by cultivating a simple, clean look; some believe he was pushing for modernity over all other aesthetics. Arnell himself claims that he was trying to cultivate thought regarding the health benefits of orange juice by presenting it in a more “emotional” way. Regardless of what his aim was, though, the result remains the same: Tropicana lost twenty million dollars in sales in the first month of the redesign’s deployment, and pulled it after that same amount of time, reverting back to its traditional packaging.

There are also different theories as to why Arnell made such a blunder as this, but one factor plays into any and all theories, and is only backed by Arnell’s and Tropicana’s shock over the rebranding’s outcome: there wasn’t enough market research. Both the company and the designer wanted to create an emotional connection between the consumer and the product and emphasize orange juice’s health benefits over all else—but how many people were drinking Tropicana’s orange juice for that reason? How many customers sought the creation of a “daily ritual” in which Tropicana orange juice plays a part? Arnell’s logic here certainly explains the meditative, almost somber atmosphere of his redesign, but was a redesign necessary at all?

It is cases like these that remind us that, as designers, we are not making products out of our own imaginations much of the time. If we design with the intent of addressing a problem, it must be a problem that we or others have spent time assessing and verifying—it must be a problem which exists at all. Arnell’s Tropicana rebrand ran into so much trouble because there was no pressing need for a rebrand in the first place: consumers would have been happy to continue buying the same time-tested carton of orange juice as they always had.

Design is not only the process of making beautiful things—it is also the process of considering the world around us, and how we ought to affect change in it. While we may not ever end up in Arnell’s specific position, heading a rebrand for a juice company, we still need to keep in mind the consumer’s needs. In our cases, those needs may be as light-hearted as finding dating partners or as heavy as bringing awareness to life-threatening illness, but it is only when we know what they are that we can begin to draw closer to solving them.