We have talked many times about the significance of product packaging and design. Not only does it need to stick out and “pop” on the shelf, but there also needs to be brand recognition for your loyal customers.  If consumers can’t easily find your product on the shelf, they will turn to another product, your competition.

An example of this was the Tropicana repackaging fiasco you may have heard of from earlier this year. Since Tropicana is such a large, well-known company, they depend on brand loyalty.  THey are known for their fresh-squeezed juice, and this was displayed with their traditional packaging with  the straw sticking out of the orange.

In  January, they decided to change their packaging by going with a very simple design.  They removed their trademark orange picture, went with lighter colors, and changed the font of their brand name. Many customers were not able to find the Tropicana juice they wanted in a hurry, or they thought the new design looked cheap and generic.

The numbers proved it.  From Jan.1 to Feb 22, unit sales dropped 20 percent and dollar sales went down 19 percent, or roughly $33 million.  Count that loss with the $35 million that they spent on the ad campaign for the new packaging, and one can see they made a costly mistake. Not only did Tropicana’s sales decrease, but their competitors, such as Minute Maid, Florida’s Natural, and Tree Ripe showed double-digit unit sales increase during that time.  Ultimately, they had no choice but to return to the old packaging.

We can all learn from Tropicana’s mistake.  First of all, packaging matters.  Secondly, as a company with brand loyal customers, you cannot change the design to drastically, because brand recognition is vital.

Cause marketing is nothing new, but it has been increasingly growing in popularity for companies to both give back to the community and to get their names out there.  It is seen as a marketing campaign, but the money used is not just being spent on promotions, it is being used to help others.  This makes cause marketing a truly great idea.

A new trend that we are starting to see is companies implementing cause marketing through popular social media networks, such as Facebook and Twitter.  These social media networks connect millions of people across the world quickly and easily.

Just last month, Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign allowed Facebook users to go on Target’s Facebook page and vote for which charity (from a list of ten) that Target will donate $3 million.  Users were allowed to vote once a day, and the amount of money each charity was given was determined by the percentage of votes that they received.  Better yet, each time someone voted, it would show up in their newsfeed for all of their friends to see.  This is a tremendous word-of-mouth tool for praising Target and their acts of social responsibility.  Target’s “Bullseye Gives” campaign resulted in 167,000 Facebook users who came together to vote over 291,000 times.  Now that’s getting their name out there.

Target is not the only company that uses social media networks, like Facebook, to broadcast their charitable efforts.  Kraft also did well with their “Share a Little Comfort” campaign.  They offered to donate up to one million boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to needy families, depending on the number of “statuses” or “tweets” shared by users on Facebook and Twitter.

Using popular social media networks for cause marketing can really help companies get their name out there and give back to the community, but they must be careful as to not come off as spam.  If consumers think that you are just trying to sell more of your product and don’t actually care about the charities, your campaign will be a setback for your branding efforts.  But if you follow in these companies footsteps in finding the perfect mix of social media promotions and charitable donations, you could gain a considerable amount of customer and brand loyalty, while still knowing that you are helping others.<–>