Mad Man

As long as their are sucker CEOs and brand managers born every second, there will always be guys like Arnett to prey on the corporate idiots.

As long as there are insecure CEOs and so-called brand manager suckers born every minute, there will always be another Arnell to prey upon corporate stupidty and weakness. More power to Arnell with his smoke and mirrors act.

Nice to see that he's using the Tropicana debacle as 'the only thing he ever screwed up'; interesting how the writer doesn't mention the Chrysler Celine Dion disaster or any number of other things. Is the Pepsi logo driving business? Is it the ads? Who knows? But, Peter takes credit for it. But, as he says, 'I get paid, so what do I care'. The clients seem to be the real rubes in this whole thing.

Here is simple fact. the re design is bland, soul-less and a rehash of other product redesigns that the arnell group has proposed to other companies. I used to work for one and was there to evaluate new product designs for the gnc product line. The options were not radical but purely uninspired and quick to bring in the paycheck. If you want to see good packaging take a trip to thedieline.com. otherwise revel in the arnell group using bad font choices and boiled down, overpriced design choices.

Are you kidding? Arnell, Landor and the like merely perpetuate the misunderstanding of what true branding is. I ought to know. I'm the guy that often has to cleanup the messes guys like them make. For more on both Landor and Arnell, I offer the following http://robfrankel.blogspot.com/search?q=Arnell

Rob Frankel
http://www.robfrankel.com

Enter Your Comment

Thanks for a great article, Daniel. After years reading your stories about Steve Jobs making people cry, it's amusing to find you writing about someone else I admire, who apparently also brings people to tears.

Arnell has had an impact on the ad industry that is enviable. He's trusted enough to not only market products, but reshape the products themselves. That's a remarkable shift. So it doesn't surprise me the vultures have come out to celebrate the Tropicana carton.

I like the carton design. Sure, it's a radical departure from the existing brand, but you don't hire someone like Arnell to simply update the font or add a drop shadow. There are plenty of other hacks capable of that.

And the commenters here that seem deeply upset by the updated design of their orange juice carton should first learn to pay more attention in the grocery store, and then have their heads examined. I sincerely hope those people aren't in the ad business.

And the "making people cry" comments are just silly. I've been in advertising for a long time, and I've seen a lot of people cry. In most cases, the people sucked at their jobs, and cried when they were asked to do better. If your job brings you to tears, I think a career change is in order.

Regardless of Tropicana or the supposed beatings, when all the dust from this has settled, Arnell will still be doing what he does now. And lots of people will still be thinking "I wish I'd thought of that."

After reading the article about Peter Arnell, and his dispicable behavior towards employees, I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am that I was one of those devoted Tropicana consumers who called Tropicana to voice my opinion and apparently was listened to. I was so shocked by such a change in the Tropicana packaging that I literally couldn't recognize it and even when I realized it was Tropicana, had the hardest time finding the particular type I always bought. In this day and age of everything we used to know, love and feel secure about changing, why in the world would someone tinker with an incredibly recognizable logo? I want my mornings to start out warm and cozy, not cold and hip. The orange and straw says it all. I know we're just the little people, but boy does this little person feel good about scoring a victory over this pompous little man who treats people so badly and has no respect for those he hires. I hope other companies take heed. Don't waste your money on this ego maniac. Maybe you'd like to cut your prices a little to help out your customers.

I briefly temped at Arnell Group in SoHo in 2002. Never met PEA. His IT department was the best I've ever relied upon in a production environment. Designers and Production Artists I met downstairs were almost all brilliant. Account Managers upstairs were batshit crazy, like sheltered hothouse flowers.

Arnell doesn't care how isolated he is from the consumers he's trying to influence. His pitch to big-ticket clients is all that matters. And the pitch is all that's left.

As someone who has worked closely with the great PE (Prince Ego) Arnell, I am amazed at how quickly your writer nailed Arnell. I'm surprised teh he didn't try to get PEPSICO to rename it's brands PEApsi and TroPEAcanna.

Say all you want about Peter. You can't argue with success. He is a little nuts, and he is more than demanding. But then again, which mega-successful CEO isn't? I worked at Arnell Group for a short while, and the things I learned there I still utilize to this day. Everyone has mis-steps along the way, but Peter's peaks sure outnumber his valleys.

Here's my question for Peter. When are you going to officially "bottle" your brand and take it to the masses? I'd much rather listen to him rant and rave than guys like Donnie Deutsch.

The Descriptionist

Simple, sleek, elegant design like the work of Peter Arnell only succeeds in the luxury goods market; hence the success with brands like DKNY. The same approach doesn't work for grocery products, partly because customers aren't buying sophistication at the grocery store... they want comfort and deliciousness, hence why grocery branding is often times very cartoonish and colorful.

I suspect that he would have found similar failure in the Pepsi re-branding if not for the massive amount of marketing PepsiCo threw behind it- without forcing the new logo down people's throats with billboards and TV-spots, there's no association with the established brand.

I'd also add that the shelf life of Pepsi vs Tropicana also affected public perception- with Pepsi, we had (and still have) old cans and bottles sitting next to new branding, which helps ease consumers into the new look gradually. With Tropicana's short shelf life, you had a sudden and universal switch in packaging (and the alienation of loyal consumers as a result).

Has no one else noticed that this man is a textbook sociopath? Literally. The following passage could easily stand in for a symptomatic definition of "sociopath":

"He has this remarkable capacity to be both the most intoxicating character???lovable, brilliant, seductively intellectual???and then turn on a dime and be staggeringly cruel," says a former business associate, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of alienating Arnell. This person recalls Arnell humiliating employees by making them get down and do push-ups in front of clients. "He is unencumbered with any sense of morality. Until you experience it firsthand, it's just completely and utterly unfathomable."

That people look up to this man is absolutely staggering.

I Love my Orange Juice, and absolutely hated Peter Arnell's mutilation of the Tropicana Brand. I was relieved last week to find that the old familiar logo and packaging was back in my local store. Keeping the little orange shaped cap is OK with me, and will serve as a little reminder that people like Arnell should not be allowed near household icons.
I think Arnell missed the mark and fails to truly appreciate the importance of a familiar brand on the supermarket shelf. When Tropicana changed their packaging I was one of those customers that shockingly thought my supermarket had removed Tropicana from it's shelves in favor of a generic store brand! The new packaging was wrong in so many ways failing to clearly distinguish the numerous variations of Tropicana OJ, they all looked the same. Clearly Arnell must never go near a supper market to actually buy groceries.
After reading Lyons' article I took a look at the new Pepsi packaging (I prefer coke, so had not taken much notice before), Pepsi has a problem. Arnell's new logo is working to erase the billions of dollars spent to create the iconic familiar Pepsi logo. Apparently Pepsi likes starting over.
I will say that Peter Arnell is excellent at creating new brands, but don't let him near any established brand that sell in the grocery store. I hate to think what would happen to the little Kebbler elves if Arnell got his creative orange stained finger on them, run elves run...

Tropicana customer for over 20 years.

I Love my Orange Juice, and absolutely hated Peter Arnell's mutilation of the Tropicana Brand. I was relieved last week to find that the old familiar logo and packaging was back in my local store. Keeping the little orange shaped cap is OK with me, and will serve as a little reminder that people like Arnell should not be allowed near household icons.
I think Arnell missed the mark and fails to truly appreciate the importance of a familiar brand on the supermarket shelf. When Tropicana changed their packaging I was one of those customers that shockingly thought my supermarket had removed Tropicana from it's shelves in favor of a generic store brand! The new packaging was wrong in so many ways failing to clearly distinguish the numerous variations of Tropicana OJ, they all looked the same. Clearly Arnell must never go near a supper market to actually buy groceries.
After reading Lyons' article I took a look at the new Pepsi packaging (I prefer coke, so had not taken much notice before), Pepsi has a problem. Arnell's new logo is working to erase the billions of dollars spent to create the iconic familiar Pepsi logo. Apparently Pepsi likes starting over.
I will say that Peter Arnell is excellent at creating new brands, but don't let him near any established brand that sell in the grocery store. I hate to think what would happen to the little Kebbler elves if Arnell got his creative orange stained finger on them, run elves run...

Tropicana customer for over 20 years.

Tropicana returned to their old packaging because sales dropped by 20% during that period, while some big competitors posted double-digit gains.

I'm taken aback not just by Peter Arnell's attitude (but only a little, I have met others like him), but also by Newsweek's lack of checking. To actually believe that "random *** off the street" raves about the Tropicana package? You have to question the rest of the puffery in here.

Jonathan Hutter

Peter Arnell "stages" events for his interviewer. Perhaps he even "stages" some of the supportive posts here. Whatever--scam artist charlatans like Peter Arnell are what they are. What's more unnerving is seeing how Pepsi, whose ads used to be famous for being, well, good ads not sources of controversy (Tropicana's cheap packaging, Gatorade's gangster rapper re-vamp, the laughable Pepsi logo, etc.) What about the Pepsi execs? Who hires this guy? And looking at Pepsi's last quarter, apparently Mr. Burwick caught Mr. Arnell's disease: his quote is a blatant lie. Wow, how the mighty have fallen.