Peter Arnell has managed to create a reality distortion field that must have an epicenter at Pepsi HQ.

Ad Age reports that his latest work for Tropicana is being tossed:

Pepsico’s Tropicana brand is junking the new orange juice package design it only just launched weeks ago. The beverage marketer is switching back to its old design whose centerpiece is an orange skewered by a drinking straw. In this video recorded at a press conference five weeks ago, Arnell Group CEO Peter Arnell vigorously defends his agency’s carton design that has now been withdrawn from the market.

Peter Arnell Explains Failed Tropicana Package Design – Advertising Age – Video.

The video that goes with it is well worth the watch:

I’ve always preferred the Minute Maid graphics done by by the Duffy & Partners years back.

Minute Maid Packaging by Duffy and Partners

However, I’ve always bought Tropicana because I prefer the taste. More on taste as a competitive factor shortly.

Arnell, of course, also redid the Pepsi logo, in a move that has been questioned and discussed by many.

There is a PDF document floating around (Pepsi Gravitational Field or “Breathtaking Design Strategy) that purports to be the “design rationale” for the move to the new logo (that has been likened to the Obama logo over and over). Ad Age questions the validity of the document, and both Pepsi and Arnell aren’t talking.

Ad Age graphic of the Pepsi logo evolution

The cost to implement a new logo for a company like Pepsi is huge. Every truck, machine, cooler, point-of-purchase will need to be retooled and updated. Great for sign companies and printers and design firms like Arnell’s.

However, I found this even more interesting: Pepsi is about to launch “Pepsi Throwback” for a limited time. The “throwback” is replacement of the low-cost high fructose corn syrup and returning to pure cane sugar as the sweetener in the product, a real, tangible product improvement and point of differentiation.

As a conniseur of root beers, I can tell you that there is no comparison between those that use pure cane sugar to those using high fructose corn syrup. Virgil’s is one of my absolute favorites.

Had Pepsi really wanted to improve their marketing, maybe, they should take the lesson from their orange juice business- making your product taste better can make up for a bad package design any day of the week. And, if they went back to the Pepsi taste test campaign, once they’ve returned to pure cane sugar, they might find the magic mojo they need to finally beat Coke. Of course, they’d have to stop believing in “breathtaking design strategies” and focus on product quality, which should always be your first step in marketing anything (ask the big 3 auto companies).

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Posted in: Everything you want to know about advertising

While this is a story about a book, it’s really a story about the transformation in marketing.

There has to be a new authenticity, a new transparency and most of all, companies need to listen to their customers first, and maybe, only respond through action.

It’s not enough to “advertise” or “market” or even “brand”- you have to bring your product to life, and give it a personality. Look at the slides for Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back, Foreword by Guy Kawasaki then do what I did and buy the book

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Posted in: Brand relevancy, Differentiating your brand

David Meerman Scott is becoming one of the social media Illuminati, with his books, talks, blog and tweets. The cool thing about all this social media stuff- is a lot of it is good old business common sense repackaged in a 2.0 format.

His post, which I’ve excerpted most of here- is one of those common sense things that corporate America needs to relearn. No matter how many amazing, expensive, beautifully shot car commercials we see- we still have to complete a transaction at the local level- with a, that’s right- car salesman. Note to GM- this is part of the reason Saturn started out so strong- you cut out the worst part of buying a car- but I digress, read what David says:

People want to do business with people. We’re human, and we crave interaction with people who know us. When you build content especially for your buyer personas, you build a relationship with people before you’ve even met them.

How about the opposite case? Have you recently visited a company Web site or blog and said, “Wow These guys understand me” Didn’t it make you feel different from how those boring old sites you usually see do?

When online content seems created by some nameless, faceless corporate entity, it doesn’t entice us. And we’re just not interested in doing business with that company. A corporate-brochure site will never start a World Wide Rave.

We all want to do business with other humans. We want to know there’s a breathing person behind the Web site or blog that we’re reading. And we want to know that those humans on the other side understand and want to help us. A great site or blog or YouTube video, created especially for us, drives us to action. We want to do business with people who understand our problems.

There’s no secret to building great online information. Start by understanding your buyer personas, not by hyping your products and services.

Web Ink Now: People want to do business with people.

The reason social media driven sites work so well, as opposed to brochure sites is that there is a chance to have a conversation. People want to be heard, and the reason they are on your site is they are looking for answers for their problems. They probably came to your site because Google put you there as “the expert” on their search- it’s your job to prove them right.

In my recent search for a printer, the company that I eventually ended up doing business with seemed like the expert in the area of large format color printers. Their site was extensive, but what got me to call, was watching a youtube video explaining and comparing two printers. The people weren’t professional actors- they were the sales team. The production wasn’t slick, it was probably flip. When I called, the people on the phone seemed to care about me getting the best possible printer at the best possible price. It wasn’t about them- it was about solving my printing problems.

A lot can be said about advertising, design, strategy, marketing- but in the end, people do business with people they know. We tell this to our clients. We remind them constantly that if they aren’t in the evoked set of possible suppliers (either in Google or in top of mind) they don’t exist. What can you do to increase your perception of expertise and accessibility to your clients?

Think about it. If you want to talk about it, feel free to call me, 937.228.4433. We’re here to solve your social media and marketing problems by helping you know more people to do business with.

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Posted in: 1 to 1 marketing, Marketing & the Web, social media