At BrandCulture, we’re vehement believers that brand is about a lot more than rigidly adhering to corporate identity guidelines. We love when organizations recognize that stakeholders are loyal not to colors or letterforms, but to the connections those colors and shapes evoke. And we absolutely swoon when we see organizations take that knowledge to flex, adapt, and keep their identity fresh in the marketplace.

Some moves, however, just don’t make a lot of sense. Take Tropicana. Not long after a wholesale redesign of their packaging and identity, PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) responded to consumer complaints with an abrupt about face. (for the record, BrandCulture thought the packaging was a little 2005 for our tastes)

Or did they?

Check out this ad for Trop50, the company’s new low-calorie juice.

Maybe PepsiCo segmented the complaints and saw that everyone hated the new packaging except health-conscious women between 34-54?

We can imagine the brand architecture arguments rationalizing the coexisting designs, but we just can’t convince ourselves it’s a smart move to have a homespun, almost hokey design and an abstract, minimal expression of the same brands on the same shelf.

And yes – they are expressions of the same brand, even if they are different products.

It’s too much flex, not the right consistency, and the new design – well – it’s just not fresh enough for us to swallow.