The Arnell Group is a design company famous for its work with DKNY and Banana Republic (among many others). In the last several years, several of its high-profile projects with PepsiCo have met with derision and consumer outrage.
Commentary
In 2008, an Arnell Group design document called "Breathtaking" was leaked to the public. The 27-page document was the point of much ridicule as its contents attempt to explain how the proposed Pepsi logo was the ultimate realization of thousands of years of good design. Gems include:
- conformance with the golden ratio (frequently used in the world of design) [p. 18] and detailed instructions on how to construct the logo using the golden ratio spiral [p. 19]
- comparison of the logo to the Earth's geodynamo and magnetic fields [p. 21]
- a 5000+ year timeline of all the "authentic Constitution of Design" (culminating with the Pepsi "Breathtaking" logo) [p. 6]
In 2009, the Arnell Group orchestrated the Tropicana orange juice package redesign. (Tropicana is owned by PepsiCo). The design met with amazing backlash from consumers (supposedly, there was a 20% drop in sales) and the existing iconic straw-in-orange design was reinstated.
Meta
What was your reaction when Pepsi changed its logo? What about Tropicana? Other companies?
See Also
- Breathtaking Design Strategy for the original 27-page design document.
- Pepsi's Nonsensical Logo Redesign Document: $1 Million for This? at BNET for a longer discussion about the Pepsi logo redesign.
- Tropicana's Marketing Folly at Harvard Business Review for a discussion of how focus groups fail to provide and understanding of advertising in context.
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3 comments:
It was ugly. In an Euro/Bauhaus sort of way. For me, it evoked memories of buying orange juice in Europe: pay 8 euros for 12 ounces of overly sweet-yet-watery orange drink. Yeeech.
Page 8 of the original document has to be BY FAR the MOST ridiculous thing I have seen. Perhaps I need to brush up on my 5000 years of collective human design history.
Ihh. What did I think about the new logo?
Hadn't noticed it. I suppose that makes it a marketing flop. And, ok, that design document is a bunch of horsepucky, but it's marketing. They need to justify their degrees in horsepucky. I expect nothing better. And they rarely dissapoint.
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