The User Experience angle on Tropicana

I'll make this quick because you have all been reading about the thunderous fail verdict the blogosphere passed on the Tropicana re-branding. Adaptive Path, those insightful devils, are as usual on point with their thoughts. Let me pull two quotes for you...

Adaptive Path Interview with VP of design at Coca-Cola

Adaptive Path - "What does user experience mean for Coca-Cola? We have our own interpretation of it here on the West Coast and in the digital community, but I imagine it’s something quite different for you guys."

Coca Cola - "For us it has to do with the usability of packaging and equipment and as well as communications through clear information hierarchy, etc. We’ve brought new focus to ergonomics and the use of our packaging, which is how people touch and experience our brands and products."

Note the mention of usability and information hierarchy, an issue with the Tropicana packaging.

Peter Merholz of Adaptive Path for Harvard Business

"So it turns out, the new (Tropicana) packaging introduced what we in user experience business call a usability problem...Tropicana was so focused on reinvigorating their brand, on making new emotional connections, they totally lost sight of the experience their customers have in the supermarket."

Those two quotes sum it up for me. I have been under a rock lately and had the luck of seeing the new Tropicana packaging totally unaware of the debacle. My reaction was "what is that? A high-priced specialty juice like POM or Naked?" This was probably because I was in a particularly froofy supermarket here in San Francisco. Eventually I saw that it was Tropicana, and my reaction was simply puzzled. Im a dole man, so I snagged my pine/orange and headed for the guacamole... Anyways those two articles from the Adaptive Path family are an interesting read if you want a different opinion on the Tropicana discussion, and in my view the most constructive way to look at it.