OJ, Amazon, virtual makeup, and movement tracking – Sales Lead Digest

This week I bumped into some great long-reads but I’m only sharing one to spare your eyeballs. The Tropicana rebrand is a fun read and now I know where that cool package cap came from. We’ll look at Amazon’s private label business dealings, virtual makeup, and see vast amounts of data being put into a useful format. Happy Friday!

orange juice

The Worst Rebrand in the History of Orange Juice

“The one thing I’ll give them credit for is the cap of the new carton. It had the haptic structure of an actual orange. ‘We engineered this little squeeze cap so that the notion of squeezing the orange was implied ergonomically.’ That was a nice touch — and the only thing that would remain after the fiasco. Tropicana added the new cap to the old design and, soon, sales recovered. Still, at over $50 million in cost, that’s one hell of a price for a new lid.”

I love re-branding stories. Our first instinct as marketers presented with someone else’s work is to question it and come up with the new, new. The challenge is to step back from our initial improvement reflex and instead, figure out what’s working and why. I’m sure the new agency did plenty of research, but you know the saying, “a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.” Start with figuring out what works.  READ MORE

amazonbie

Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products

“In one instance, Amazon employees accessed documents and data about a bestselling car-trunk organizer sold by a third-party vendor. The information included total sales, how much the vendor paid Amazon for marketing and shipping, and how much Amazon made on each sale. Amazon’s private-label arm later introduced its own car-trunk organizers.”

Is anyone surprised at this story? The department stores and mass merchants have been doing it for years. See what sells, go to the manufacturer and make a private label version. The difference here, besides denying they did it, is the scale with which Amazon harvests competitor info. If you or your clients sell on someone else’s turf, assume they’re watching closely. Build your own customer list. READ MORE


instagram

Instagram Filters Are Changing the Way We Think About Makeup

“Instagram’s AR filters have been popular since launching in May 2018 and then opening to all creators that October. The social distancing that is necessary during the current coronavirus pandemic has dramatically reduced the number of people we come into physical contact with. Many filters can create the effect of physical makeup such as foundation, eyeliner, mascara, and lipstick, so the line becomes blurry as to what counts as “makeup.” This becomes even more blurry in our current almost entirely socially digital world. There’s a Touch Up My Appearance button for Zoom and a way to use Snapchat filters in Google Hangouts, Zoom, or Skype, using software called Snap Camera.”


There are so many great stories of our life online during pandemic and this one is fun. It’s capitalism in action. See a need, fill the need, make some money doing it. I ran this idea by my wife who is now teaching remotely via Zoom. She gets made-up from the waist-up and goes to work. The built in Zoom image improvement filter only did so much, but this, she said, could be a game changer! Fun stuff. READ MORE

roadFacebook Data for Good Mobility Dashboard

“This map is based on insights developed by the Covid-19 Mobility Data Network, coordinated by Direct Relief and researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, using aggregated population movement data from Facebook’s Data for Good program.”
Check out your state and see how shelter-in-place is working. The sheer amount of data on movement tracking that various companies have accumulated and their ability to turn it into something useful is inspiring. Sure, it’s great for selling stuff too, but if it can make us smarter, better, and safer, it’s inspiring. READ MORE