AdMiration feature: Tropicana's “The Juice That Starts It All”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we researched Tropicana's “The Juice That Starts It All” ad. 

Tropicana creates bold yet humorous associations for the brand in a bright and engaging way with this ad, successfully communicating on key category drivers and delivering significant purchase uplift for the brand.

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a clip of someone pouring Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice into a glass. This then cuts to a clip of oranges being picked as a narrator says, “Tropicana may not have invented orange juice, but the brand did find a way to bring fresh-tasting OJ to everyone in 1954 and they continue to do so to this day — freshly squeezing the oranges and never adding sugar.” 

The narrator points out that while Tropicana can’t say they invented OJ, there are a number of things that wouldn’t have existed if OJ hadn’t been made available, so they can claim they invented those. The audience is taken through a montage of all things Tropicana “basically” invented: brunch, Saturday mornings, fridge chugging, morning people, etc.

The ad concludes with the narrator stating that they are not done yet, because Tropicana Pure Premium is “the juice that starts it all.”

3 facts

• The ad scores in the top 15% of all US ads in potential to drive immediate sales and in the top 2% in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales.

• It is extremely well branded, with strong brand presence from start to finish, showcasing a number of distinctive brand assets through both audio and visual cues. 

• Product attributes that are important to the category (such as fresh and tasty) are communicated effectively and the ad drives a significant purchase uplift for the brand. 

2 learnings

• Keeping a consistent style and tone in your advertising over the years can help to immediately trigger the brand and reawaken existing associations for consumers.

• Clever brand assets can work well to not only cue the brand, but also convey key associations about the brand.

1 reflection

How well does your brand communicate on key category drivers? By understanding category entry points or challenges, your brand is better positioned to address them in communications and drive higher consumer engagement and greater brand salience in the moments that matter today and far into the future.

Who do we have to thank for brunch, fridge chugs and morning people? According to Tropicana, them! Tropicana does a fantastic job at showcasing their brand assets and communicating the benefits of Tropicana OJ in a fun, bright and engaging way. 

The ad scores in the top 15% of all US ads in potential to drive immediate sales (Sales Impact: 88) and in the top 2% in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales (Brand Impact: 98).

With the initial shot of the Tropicana juice being poured into a glass, the audience was able to recognize which brand the ad was for straight away. This resulted in unaided brand recall scores significantly higher than the norm (78% vs 67%) as well as the uniqueness of brand impressions score (4.0 vs 3.9 norm). 

About 40% of viewers said it could only be an ad for Tropicana. The distinctive brand assets that helped them identify the brand were predominantly the Tropicana brand name (both audibly and visually), the characteristic bottle, and both the orange trees and the classic orange with a straw poking out of it.

The ad did well communicating the benefits of Tropicana and delivered positive attributes to influence consumers to want to purchase the product. There was significant outperformance on the category drivers score (51 vs 33 norm), with some of the most selected attributes of how the audience felt the Tropicana brand was portrayed being “great tasting,” “natural” and “helps you start your day.” 

This no doubt drove some of the large purchase uplift for the brand after consumers saw the ad (26% vs 19% norm). Before watching the ad, only 19% of respondents would have chosen Tropicana the next time they were shopping for juices; after watching the ad, this went up to 45% of respondents. 

Not only was the ad great in showcasing the functional benefits of the product, it was also highly engaging at an emotional level (61% overall emotion vs 55% norm). “Love” and “Like” reactions were constant throughout the ad, showing people’s affinity for the brand.

There were also some smaller spikes in laughter when the audience saw the montage of all the different things Tropicana “basically” invented. All of this drove outperformance in emotional intensity (17.9 vs 15.0 norm).

People loved the sheer brightness of the ad with the vibrant colors and the fun and happiness portrayed. The narrator was praised for his tone and how well he communicated, making the ad easy to follow.

The audience felt the product truly shined, both in the way it came across as being extremely natural as well as landing its benefits around the heritage, how it is freshly squeezed and never adds sugar. Ultimately it felt very real and relatable. 

Here’s what some respondents liked about the ad:

• "I liked the music and vibrant colors. The smiling faces and quirky jokes. Fridge chugging was funny. It was pleasant to watch and relatable in many ways for people of different ages. Makes me want to drink orange juice lol."

• "I liked the narrator's voice and all of the colors they used in the different scenes that were shown."

• "I like that all different kinds of people of all ages in different places are enjoying Tropicana orange juice and they point out that Tropicana doesn’t add sugar"

• "I like the insinuation that with the invention of Tropicana, every occasion that includes orange juice should be with Tropicana."

• "The ad made it seem like Tropicana is homemade and the best of all the OJ's"

• "The fact that it's natural, squeezed from fresh oranges and never adding sugar so it's healthy, tasty, refreshing, revitalizing; gets your day off to a great start; for morning people since 1954."

All in all, this is an incredibly successful ad that will no doubt work wonders for Tropicana’s sales and brand equity, in both the short and long term!

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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