Don't Let a Logo Change Sour Your Brand

One of my long-time comfort brands is Dannon.  It's also just the best yogurt I can find in a store (can't you just visualize the way your spoon cuts into the first bite?).  And unlike Yoplait or the store brands, Dannon is never sickly sweet.  As a kid, there was something exciting about the fruit at the bottom--it was like a discovery each time, digging for buried treasure. And, yes, I have always felt this dramatic about food.

In my concerns over sugar intake, I've cut down on the sugar-added yogurts and started buying Dannon Plain Yogurt in larger containers.  For a more "natural" treat, I will combine plain yogurt, frozen berries, and a touch of honey.  This past week, when I purchased a new container of Dannon plain and noticed some changes to the packaging.

First, here's the old packaging:

Now, here's the new packaging:

  

There are a few obvious technical differences: larger, clearer text, the "new look! same great taste" banner, and the "Kosher for Passover" designation (which makes sense, given that I bought it a week ago).

The effect on the brand is more subtle:

- The farm scene is greatly simplified, losing the trees and silo.  This simplicity fits with the desired brand associations: natural, simple, and traditional.

- The old design had indistinct "swooshes" of green and blue, while the new design has more white background. Taking this away makes the on-package messaging clearer, and focuses the consumer on the words and the barn imagery.

- The reduntant phrase "No Artificial Anything" was removed, presumably because consumers understand better that "All Natural" means there is nothing artificial in the product. 

So, what's the big deal?  This is the type of incremental logo and branding changes you would expect from an established multinational company like Dannon. Slow and steady, they will gradually position their healthier yogurts as "simple" and "natural" in order to be more competitive with the increasingly crowded "healthy yogurt" market.

That was the type of logo change I would applaud for a well-recognized consumer food product brand.  The loser in this category would be Tropicana, for it's failed attempt to revamp its logo earlier this year. 

As many bloggers and reporters have pointed out, the new "fresh" packaging doesn't even look like orange juice, unless you look really closely.  Apparently many shoppers thought it was the store brand and kept walking, looking (subconsciously) for the carton with the orange and the straw.

The real question here is, why did they need a major packaging revamp? Was the brand stale? Did they need their customers to perceive their brand differently?  I think this is an example of where the creative ambitions were allowed to go beyond the realm of consumer-focused marketing.  It may have been a fresh, contemporary design, but a product packaging must always be first and foremost and means of effectively communicating with the consumer, not just a canvas for artistic expression.