Tropicana Changes Packaging, Consumers Sound Off, PR People Opine

[Tropicana, before and after]

Tropicana recently went ahead and changed its iconic “straw in the orange” packaging, but consumers are none to happy. After a plethora of complaints, notably via social media, the company has decided to forgoe the new look (which cost Tropicana $35M) and return to their original design.

Nonetheless, PR pros were happy to sound off to the NY Times‘ Stuart Elliott for his story on the issue. “You used to wait to go to the water cooler or a cocktail party to talk over something. Now, every minute is a cocktail party…You write an e-mail and in an hour, you’ve got a fan base agreeing with you,” said RLM PR CEO and Bad Pitch Blogger Richard Laermer.

Meanwhile, Help A Reporter Out founder Peter Shankman told Elliott, “There will always be people complaining, and always be people complaining about the complainers…but this [social media] makes it easier to put us together.”

The real winner in all of this? Laermer, who got a link to his Bad Pitch Blog mentioned in Shankman’s massive newsletter today. Agency Spy has more.

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