March 9, 2009

Bland is the New Quirk

I feel like I've been mandated by the people today to talk about the new Snapple bottles. We've had the new Orangeade bottles for a few weeks now, but I guess nobody noticed. I think that was originally the point for the update: no one was buying the Snapple juices, so they gave them a new package and more sugar. Today, I put out several other new flavors, and it's all I've been hearing all morning. We even had a fire in the building today (well, technically, on the building) but Snapple is the only thing on people's mindz.

This blog comes just on the heels of the Great Tropicana Complaint, which resulted in Pepsico recalling the updated design. I don't anticipate Snapple doing the same thing, but it's amazing what complaining will get you. Just as a reminder, I didn't have any serious complaints about the Tropicana design, other than the color coding issues between flavors. It seems that I have the same exact complaint for this new Snapple bottle, specifically on the diet bottles. I'm not worried about telling the difference between Snapple and generic teas, but I can not tell the difference between diet flavors quick enough. Diet Peach Tea is a very similar color to the Diet Lemonade Iced Tea. I know that I have the ability to read, but I work with dozens of cases of Snapple at a time, and the lack of definitive color differences slows me down. The regular flavored tea and juice seem to have held on to their original color schemes, but the diets have been completely overhauled. I can imagine this will bother consumers.

Actually, I don't need to imagine because quite a number of them have mentioned this to me today. The other big problem the has everyone freaking out is the lack of the safety plastic around the cap. Maybe in reality, there's no real protection with those plastic things, but to consumers, they're used to the security feature and aren't too keen on giving them up. There's still the pop up cap, but it looks like that's the extent. Snapple bottles are now as unhygienic as... gasp... cans!

Other than that, the bottles are slim (and taller), smooth (non-textured glass other than the "S" logo on top), and serious (no more quirky notes in the margins). If those things keep costs from rising, then that's fine with me. Every bottle and their cute little copy is trying to flirt with me anyway and it's gotten lame. Don't they know that Bland is the new Quirk.

All right, you want pictures? You got it.

Here are two different Diet Snapple Teas. QUICK, PICK YOUR FAVORITE!

IT'S TOO LATE, YOU PICKED THE WRONG YELLOWISH BOTTLE WITH YELLOWISH FRUIT! YOU LOSE, AMERICAN ASSHOLE!

Here are two more bottles. Both are Orangeade, but has the old school green juice cap and the other has the silver robocap of the future! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!

Here's some more fun cap action. Lemonade on the left, Raspberry on the right, and the bastard child in the center. I have a feeling that with the new bottle transition, they've been putting any old cap on bottles and sending them out just to get rid of them.

Here's a closeup of the new serious bottle.

Another close-up but a little more focused now. This one reveals the odd similarities between the "Made From Green & Black Tea Leaves" and the Green & Black's organic chocolate logo.


Is this a coincidence? Dear reader? Is it?

2 comments:

kcw said...

Odd similarity's? As in they both have the word green, and the word black, and an ampersand?

Weeeiirrrddd...

Ro-Beast Rollie said...

I'll have you know, Mr. Wallace, that my observation is being taken seriously by G&B's legal counsel. So nyah!