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The Tropicana Rebranding Failure
In the worst rebrand in the history of orange juice, Tropicana paid $35 million to then lose $20m in sales
In hindsight, it’s easy to see why Tropicana’s 2009 rebrand failed. Poor design choices, a messy, vague, esoteric theme, and — as often with these things — a complete disregard of common sense.
When Tropicana hired legendary ad agency Arnell in 2008, they surely didn’t expect that, after five months of design work, launch planning, and $35 million in marketing spend, they’d lose 20% of their revenue within a month — about $20 million total in missed sales. But that’s exactly what happened.
Less than 30 days after launch, they pulled the new design off the shelves and went back to the old one. Four years later, Arnell shut down — they had been in business for three decades.
Looking back, some of Arnell’s mistakes appear obvious. What do you think? They went from this…
…to this:
