In January 2009, Tropicana Pure Premium arrived on shelves in a new carton. On 23 February, PepsiCo announced the old one was coming back (Bloomberg).

That's not long for a new carton to last. This is what happened in between, and why it's still worth thinking about before you change your own packaging or logo.

What changed on the carton

The old Tropicana carton had an image shoppers knew: an orange with a straw stuck in it. The redesign, by Peter Arnell's agency, replaced it with "a minimalist design featuring a glass of orange juice" (CNN via WRAL).

On paper, a glass of juice is a sensible picture for a juice carton. On the shelf, shoppers didn't see it that way. They complained the new design was "generic and cheap-looking" (CNN via WRAL).

Between 1 January and 22 February 2009, sales of Tropicana Pure Premium fell 20%. In dollars, that's roughly $33 million, with sales going from about $170 million to $137 million over that period (Bloomberg).

The next day, 23 February, PepsiCo said it would return to the original packaging. Orange, straw and all.

Tropicana North America's president, Neil Campbell, explained it this way: "We underestimated the deep emotional bond they had with the original packaging" (The Branding Journal).

Why the old carton mattered

Think about how you actually buy juice. You don't stand in the aisle reading every label. You look for the thing you bought last time and you grab it. That orange with a straw was a shortcut. Take it away and a regular buyer has to stop and search, and the carton they're searching for now looks like any other juice on the shelf, including the cheaper own-label ones.

That's the reading we find convincing. The new carton made a premium product look like a store brand, and it took away the thing people used to find it.

For a smaller business, the shelf might be an Instagram feed, a page of search results or a busy market. The same thing applies. The colours, shapes and marks people already connect with you are how they spot you quickly. Change them all at once and, to a returning customer, you're a stranger again.

The other side

It's fair to say the carton may not be the whole story. Early 2009 was the middle of a recession, and competitors were running promotions. Bloomberg notes that rivals and private labels gained double-digit unit sales in the same period (Bloomberg). That fits the idea that Tropicana started to look like a store brand, but it doesn't prove the carton alone caused the drop.

Still, PepsiCo looked at its own numbers and its customers' complaints and reversed the change within weeks of launch. The people with the clearest view of the data decided the old carton was worth more than the new one.

This also isn't an argument against ever changing your look. Brands refresh all the time, and sometimes they need to. What matters is which parts you keep.

One thing to do this week

Before you change a logo, a colour or your packaging, write down what your customers actually use to recognise you. Not what you like about your brand. What they'd look for if they were trying to find you in a hurry.

Ask a few regular customers or clients how they'd describe your packaging, your shop or your feed to a friend. Listen for the specific things they mention, like a colour, a shape, a word or a style of photo. Those are the parts to protect. If you do redesign, keep them and change things around them.

What do your customers use to find you?