mob marketing–>a future of pitchforks & torches?

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How did an internet mob force a major company to pull a seemingly harmless packaging change off the shelf so quickly?

For those who haven’t followed the story, the Tropicana packaging change drama has been going on for a few months now (click here for the background).  The latest news is that the huge internet amplified backlash seems to have contributed to a 20% drop in sales.

Wow…

Tropicana didn’t mix gasoline into their juice.  They didn’t get caught making 5 year old kids work for 20 hours in the hot sun without sunscreen.  They weren’t using strange genetic formulas to make their oranges turn watermelon sized.  They didn’t even change the taste of their iconic juice (like Coke did with New Coke) Instead, Tropicana got hammered due to a pretty harmless packaging design change that didn’t sit well with consumers–apparently leaving off their recognizable “juicy orange + straw” logo (among other things) etc.

According to Information Resources Inc., unit sales dropped 20%, while dollar sales decreased 19%, or roughly $33 million, to $137 million between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22.   Several of Tropicana’s competitors appear to have benefited from the misstep, notably Minute Maid, Florida’s Natural and Tree Ripe.

What a response.  Why Tropicana?  And who set this agenda in motion?

Consumers…

The lesson for those looking to change companies in a hurry…start finding ways to motivate the consumer mobs.

As Consumers, we really can drive change in today’s connected world–and not just meaningless packaging design changes…we can drive change that makes a difference.  Purpose led internet mobs can start driving record sales of “Good” companies/brands and force change on companies with sketchy sustainability track records.

Look, today there are enough “Good” brands and companies out there with cause related campaigns or “justifiably” green products.  We can spend a little extra time to seek out these products and buy them.  And, even if a company isn’t particularly “green” or “social” (in your mind) but offers a new product in this space, give them the benefit of the doubt (for now).   If they do make an honest effort to offer a product with a cause or green focused campaign, don’t bash them as greenwashers right off the bat–encourage them!  Go ahead and buy the stuff…this will help motivate companies to lead to bigger, better, (and probably more authentic) promotions down the road as skeptical managers discover that green/social products actually work (Greenbacks lead to Greenmanagers)

Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are some unscrupulous players out there trying to prey on the recent uptick in green consumer sentiment…and we should avoid them like the plague.  Watchdogs need to be all over this space.

But, if we can psycho-analyze Tropicana orange juice packaging changes & spend 2 hours writing a blog post about this nonsense, surely we can do our homework and get our hands on some Green/social products + occasionally buy from a new player out there trying their luck in the space.

If we drive $change$ 1 purchase at a time, we will see companies change.  And, if companies change, the world will change.

And, through the web, we can amplify change, making all this stuff happen MUCH faster…

Possibly related articles

• Tropicana’s Marketing Folly (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• Tropicana’s poor redesign kills sales (kottke.org)
• Tropicana Cans New Cartons So You Like-a the Juice Again (gothamist.com)
• does not rhyme with orange (marketing.blogtanker.com)
• Tropicana Returns to Old Packaging After Customers Complain (shoppingblog.com)
• Bad Tropicana packaging to go away (kottke.org)