Keurig Dr Pepper is hoping to put some snap back into Snapple iced tea sales by tapping into the nostalgia craze. Snapple will get new packaging and a new summer flavor, the company said. The push is part of an overall campaign to capture the interest of Gen Z, 72% of whom are prone to try new flavors monthly, compared with 44% of Americans overall, said Katie Webb, Keurig Dr Pepper’s VP of innovation.
But will packaging and a new flavor be enough to reignite interest in the brand?
“I think for a brand or product to make a ‘comeback,’ it has to become relevant again,” Vishakha Mathur, VP at SKDK, told The Food Institute. “Relevance is largely a factor of the context in which the brand is re-entering the market. For example, Snapple is entering a market that is now more health-conscious, so for someone to pick up Snapple again — as opposed to another beverage branded as a healthy option — Snapple has to demonstrate that it is also a healthy option.”
If Snapple is trying to be cool again, maybe it should stop trying so hard to be cool, suggested Chuck Meehan, chief creative officer at The Pavone Group. Meehan said consumers “can smell desperation a mile away.”
Rather than trying an in-your-face move, brands need to “show up where culture lives: in social feeds and in real-world moments.”
The key to success, however, may be authenticity, said Reilly Newman, brand strategist and founder of Motif Brands.
“I see Snapple benefiting from not only hitting a note of nostalgia for those who drank Snapple in the past, but also relating to younger generations with a ‘90s inspired design as trends are leaning toward this era. The design the brand is leaning into feels less glossy and put together or what I would call ‘undesigned’ to a degree that makes the brand feel more authentic and less corporate,” Newman said.
Snapple plans to use colorful graphics that “jump off the shelf” and a logo harkening back to its classic trademark. The brand also will highlight its ingredients.
This summer, it will offer summer blends that pair raspberry-flavored tea with lemonade, Two Hundred Fif‑TEA Party, for the 250th U.S. anniversary.
The U.S. beverage market is dominated by the likes of Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Keurig Dr Pepper held about 9.17% last year.
Trademark attorney Erik Pelton said going back to its original logo and packaging is an easy way for Snapple to reconnect.
“I see all too often that brands update and change their logos and design without any good reason. Keurig Dr Pepper has an opportunity to embrace its history and go back to its original well-known logo and labeling to be cool and trendy once again,” Pelton said.
But rekindling brand visuals is nothing new.
“As long as they go about it strategically, maybe pulling in more nostalgia triggers with audio and other visuals and pairing that with the right messaging, they can really reel in not only the emotional-experience-seeking crowd that remembers drinking from the original design when it was first in circulation, but also the social belongers who dominate the younger demographics,” said Kaitlyn Smith-Leis of Point Made Studio.
Food for Thought Leadership
In this episode, The Food Institute sits down with William Grand, founder and CEO of NutriFusion, to examine the growing health crisis tied to ultra-processed foods—and what it will take to fix it.
