Psychology of Consumer Behaviour | Scoop.it

Monday, February 23, 2009

Drink an Orange- Don't mess with the straw in the orange!


In 1916 Claude Hopkins created an ad for Sunkist to persuade people to squeeze an orange and drink the juice. The ad ran in the Saturday Evening Post with the slogan, "Drink an Orange."

The early 1900s was a era of germs and disease and the ad supplied a solution explaining the healthy virtues that physicians recommended in "nature's germ-proof package."

Breakfast time was changed forever, aided of course by Sunkist's orange "extractor" for just 10 cents.



Fast forward 90 something years and the virtue of drinking an orange is still extolled by marketers.

Until recently Tropicana's brand symbol was an orange with a straw. In January they launched a new campaign and introduced a new look-- sans orange. Oops!



PepsiCo who owns the Tropicana brand also just brought out a new look for Pepsi to very mixed reviews.

But for Tropicana it appears, the company will back down to public pressure. Reaction to the new Tropicana design was swift. Consumers emailed, phoned and twittered calling the new packaging ugly, generic looking and stupid. Like the Pepsi design, this change was meant to be noticed - a new fresh image.
The old version of the package will return next month. It's an immediate world today that can effect a change like that.

Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America in Chicago said it wasn't the number of complaints as much as who was complaining. He admits they underestimated the deep emotional bond their most loyal consumers had with the original packaging.
“What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”

The orange and the straw return next month.

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