Complex Numbers

Revisited: "Orange You Glad This Wasn't You?"

My first random selection of a past blog entry landed on one I'd already revisited. I knew that could happen, obviously, but I was still mulling over whether to do another revisit, or just skip it and roll again.

I've decided, instead, to point to the previous Revisited, thus: "Revisited: "Best Waste of Time EVER""  But that's all I'm going to say about it.

And then I rolled again, and got this discussion of an article, posted about four years ago: "Orange You Glad This Wasn't You?" 

That's the one we'll look at today.

Something a little different today.

Yeah, back then, maybe it was "a little different," but I think now it looks like just another article I could riff on.

The link, to a 2020 bit about Tropicana's orange juice marketing disaster back in 2009, is still there... but when I looked, it said "Member-only story."

That's their right, of course, but nothing from Medium has ever captured my attention enough to become a "member," and to me, there are very few articles on the internet worth reading that aren't also worth sharing. So I don't bother. I pay WaPo for a subscription, because that's the newspaper I grew up with (if indeed I grew up at all), but that's about it.

Therefore, all I can do is talk about my own reactions. Even the specific "rebrand" they're talking about is hidden and forgotten.

So why am I linking something about orange juice? Because it's a product, and some marketing techniques apply to a broad range of products... like, for instance, your writing.

Not that I'll ever apply these techniques. But, being entirely altruistic and thinking only of my readers, I perform the public service of informing them.

Okay, no, I just find this stuff fascinating for whatever reason, and I'd rather learn from others' failures than from my own.

But maybe this will help someone else. Or, hey, maybe you just like orange juice.

The reality is a bit of both.

Coke's "New Coke" fiasco personally affected me. I don't drink orange juice, so I never noticed a rebrand.

Yes, almost 40 years later, and I still carry trauma from that horrible year.

The article helpfully includes "before" and "after" pics.

Not any more, if you're not a member.

Function is more important than form. Well... for me. Engineer, remember? But I can admit that when it comes to trying to sell shit, part of the function is to catch a viewer's eye (or ear in the case of radio). That requires form.

Much as I rag on myself for having no artistic talent (I don't) or not understanding marketing (I don't), I do have some background in graphic design and artistic composition. Part of being a photographer. I maintain that I wasn't very good at it, but I understand some of the theory, just like I understand some music theory even though I'm a terrible musician.

Then I quoted the following from the original article:

“Historically, we always show the outside of the orange. What was fascinating was that we had never shown the product called the juice.” Really? I mean, it’s juice. Give me a clear symbol of it, and I’m good to go. And what could be clearer than the actual fruit the juice is from?

On which I commented:

Somewhere in there, I think, is probably a metaphor for promoting one's writing. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's in there.

Having had four years to think about it, I'm still unable to articulate what that metaphor is, but I'm still sure there is one, taunting me. I think it's encapsulated in the line, "Give me a clear symbol of it, and I’m good to go." People respond to symbols; that's kind of our thing as humans, to let one thing stand for another, or for an abstract concept.

But I'm reminded of what might have been my first lesson in marketing failures, which, to be fair, could have been an urban legend. The story went something like this: In some less-developed country, it was standard practice to show an image of the contents of the can on the label. If it's beans, for example, the can depicts beans. For carrots, there's a picture of carrots. That way, even those who can't read (a large portion of the population) would know what's supposed to be in the can. Anyway, the fail I heard about was that Gerber tried to enter that market, but couldn't... because their baby food cans had a picture of a baby.

Almost every barbecue joint I've ever seen uses a pig as a mascot. This is not because they're marketing to literal pigs. Metaphorical ones, maybe, but their customers generally don't root for truffles and oink.

In any case, I think I've discussed other marketing mistakes in here since then. That entry's comment section is also good for examples, because I turned it into a Merit Badge contest, which is something I haven't done for a while. Except for last week's free badge giveaway, of course.

But I can't leave this without noting that the header for this blog doesn't exactly depict what's in the can. So I guess I really do fail at marketing.