Heading into 2024, Tropicana OJ sales were suffering – in part because people mistakenly believed that Tropicana OJ contained added ingredients and sugars (it doesn’t). So the 75-year-old brand needed to find a way to re-enter the cultural conversation and tell our natural ingredient story in a buzzworthy way.
One of the hottest cultural topics at the time was AI. Many brands were attempting to leverage AI in some way. But people were also anxious about AI destroying what’s good about all things natural.
So, we saw an audacious opportunity: remove the letters A and I from our name and become TROPCN, intersecting the AI debate to reinforce that there’s nothing artificial about our OJ.
We started by teasing the coming name change across Tropicana’s social channels - teasing it without giving it away - thereby building anticipation and buzz.
Then we revealed the AI-free bottles. Tropicana was now Tropcn.
And we didn’t stop there. To maximize the impact of this message, we went to the center of the AI conversation: the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where we rolled up with a TROPCN branded food truck, passing out TROPCN-labeled Tropicana bottles and merch to CES attendees.
We hid 100 bottles for consumers to find at Kroger grocery stores nationwide and hosted an online sweepstakes for those who couldn’t find our hidden bottles.
The results were staggering: 1.2 billion media impressions within 1 week and 1.7 billion impressions total, including coverage in mainstream news outlets like CNN about Tropicana’s commitment to natural. We also saw 100% positive sentiment on social media and 17,000 sweepstakes entries. Plus Tropicana orange juice saw a 9.2% sales lift at Kroger Family of Stores in the weeks following the launch and a 6.4% sales lift across other retailers where Tropicana is sold. (Sales data provided per IRI Total US-MultiOutletC L4W)
Our “all natural” message got out there in a big, buzzy way. All because we had the audacity to stay true to our natural roots and say “bye-bye, AI.”
