UPDATE! Seems I'm not the only one who didn't like the rebrand. Check it out here.
As the recession wears on, popular brands nationwide are putting considerable effort - and dollars - into rebranding strategies designed to make us feel better about buying the products we didn't used to think twice about ponying up for. Our taste in Pepsi may not have changed, they fear, but the "unemployment jitters" are quickly becoming fuel aplenty to get us through that all too familiar afternoon lull.
The question is: Do companies, in an effort to make consumers more comfortable with paying for "premium," actually make them uncomfortable by changing what was once familiar?
I think it might. It seems ironic to read, for example, that PepsiCo-owned Tropicana Orange Juice would shell out $35 million for a new ad campaign positioning them as America's "main squeeze."
I liked the old brand identity better; you know, the classic straw sticking out of the orange motif. It was visually appealing and clever and got the message across without a lame tag line or cap in the shape of a halved orange (though that is rather, um...peachy). But more importantly, it jumped off the shelf not because it was new and flashy looking, but because it was familiar. The new carton is nice, but by simplifying the design and deviating from their previous look, it has only made itself blend in more with the competitors. Seems to me in an effort to make purchasing their brand feel more comfortable (and therefore justified) to the penny-clutching public, all Tropicana did was water down their already juicy product and put themselves into a $35 million dollar hole in the process.
I guess in the end it squeezes down to one important question: In today's economy, is it smarter to rebrand a product in the hopes of making consumers more comfortable with its price, or to keep the familiar brand but devise a marketing strategy that convinces consumers that the same old good stuff is still worth the extra ducats?
I tend to favor the latter option, but I'd love to hear why you disagree.
Image Courtesy of poopface_productions (yes, it's really called that).
Agreed it looks generic, and the image looks like cheap stock photography, and by cheap I mean the kind you pay 10 dollars for a year and get all the images you want. What I did like about it is that it was clean and simple, and I got all the info I needed in one glance. I do think they went a bit too far by going the total opposite of what they used to look like. Typographically its not bad, but just not the correct product for it. The second I saw it it reminded me of the design that was done for 100% design by Argus Hyland.