Worst Listeners of the Year (Or Maybe Ever!)
Posted by Allison Fine on April 15, 2009
The worst listener of the year, no actually make that the decade so far? Easy, really it’s a no-brainer, it’s Tropicana. You probably saw the expensive results of their closing their ears if you looked in your supermarket for OJ at the beginning of the year and thought there was a new, cheap, generic brand. Here is a mind boggling story of corporate incompetence that I hope resonants with activsts who could be doing a better job of listening (meaning everyone!):
- Tropicana decided last year that their old look wasn’t jazzy enough, wants to boost sales, and does what big companies do; reflexively hired expensive outsiders to create a new look. [Note: if you want to see an ad guy talk gobbldygook for 3 minutes in a way that begs for a bit on The Office, watch Peter Arnell bumble his way through a nonsensical presentation of this rebranding effort.]
- Launches new brand image on January 1, 2009.
- Tropicana sales plummeted 20% between Jan. 1 and Feb. 22. As one blog post noted, “A brand that’s been cultivated for 30-plus years loses a fifth of its customers in fewer than 60 days! Not only did Tropicana lose ground but its competitors gained.”
- Tropicana pulls the plug on the re-branding after tens of millions of dollars on the effort.
How is it possible to fail so spectacularly? By not listening. I asked an ad agency friend of mine why didn’t they talk to customers about this lifeless, generic, tepid new look? And that’s what makes the story so much worse; she said they did!
I would feel better if the MBAs just decided that they liked what they saw from the hired guns and went with their guts – a Bushian decider moment. What makes this episode the most egregious case I’ve heard about in years, is that they DID ask people and then actively chose not to listen. That takes a lot of gumption. Passive non listening – the kind of nodding your husband does when you’re telling him about the sale you just found at the mall is one thing – looking at the focus group data where customers HATED the rebranding (and rightly so) and then choosing to ignore them is an amazing act of active nonlistening.
I hope these guys were fired, ’cause there are a lot of competent people looking for work nowadays. But, I’m also wondering which activist groups are actually listening and which are either passive or active not listening? Are you nodding when your volunteers are talking and hoping they’ll stop soon so you can get back to work? Or are you really listening and engaging them in a conversation? Are you using all of your social media tools like Technorati and Google alerts and Twitter to listen to what folks have to say about your and your cause? Whatever you’re doing, redouble it, because if you’re not listening, they’re going to stop talking and working with you if they haven’t already.
3 Responses to “Worst Listeners of the Year (Or Maybe Ever!)”
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Hatef Yamini said
Hi Allison, thanks for the great links that went with this post. I’ve been reading threads on this topic as well. What parallels do you draw between this story and the story of facebook’s redesign? Mark Zucker’s approach wasn’t just passive non-listening, it was downright active.
Allison Fine said
Thanks Hatef. I think that the Facebook situation is a bit different than the non-listening fortress that the Pepsico guys who run the Tropicana brand live in. Facebook folks are in a frenzy because they are desperately trying to figure out how to monetize the site before it becomes passe and perhaps implodes. So, they lurch this way and that, surprise their users by changing the terms of service and create a new redesign all as part of their sprint to an IPO. That’s just my guess: Tropicana is old business, too smart and silo’d to listen; Facebook is in a terrified frenzy about trying to cash out quickly. But you’re right, neither one listens well!
Ken Honeywell said
Great story, Allison. But I’d submit that the problem may not have been “not listening.” Too often, ad agencies use research to justify whatever it is they want to do, anyway. I’ve witnessed a lot of really bad focus groups, where moderators, perhaps unwittingly, lead participants to conclusions they wouldn’t get to on their own. I also think it’s generally a bad idea to ask focus groups to comment on creative work, including package design: people are happy to offer opinions about things they don’t know and don’t think about. Perhaps the real problem with Tropicana and its agency was that they knew they wanted a change, so they came up with a new design, and did some research just to cover their butts.
And you’re right: Peter Arnell’s defense of the design is ridiculous. More proof that most ad agencies today are still living in 1987.