FEATURE
Drinks brand Schweppes lampooned itself in a Twitter advert this week after customers took to social media to complain about it rebranding – and the company promised to roll back a hated change to its branding.
The Coca-Cola brand had changed the look of its Soda Water drink – which had left many to confuse it with Schweppes Tonic Water.
Schweppes now admits that was “not our brightest moment”.
From the senior brand manager, Mukundi Munzhelele, who came up with the bright idea, to marketing manager Nerisha Maharajh who signed off on it, various staffers took it on the chin and lampooned themselves for the mistake in the social media ad.
“The complaints we received were passionate and heartfelt,” Munzhelele tells Business Insider South Africa.
“It was only fair to them (customers) that the actual people who worked on the campaign not only see the responses, but respond in a manner that was fitting.”
According to Munzhelele, the team wanted to modernise the labels. But a change in colour caused a lot of confusion.
#OhSchweppes, we're so sorry that our mix-up ruined your mixing. For the record, we agree with you – our packaging blunder wasn't our brightest moment. We'll be better. pic.twitter.com/uaG7RUiyQp
— Schweppes ZA (@SchweppesSA) November 13, 2018
#OhSchweppes, we're so sorry that our mix-up ruined your mixing. For the record, we agree with you – our packaging blunder wasn't our brightest moment. We'll be better. pic.twitter.com/uaG7RUiyQp
— Schweppes ZA (@SchweppesSA) November 13, 2018
I know! Let's break what's fixed. Let's rebrand the soda water to look like the tonic water and laugh and laugh at the tricked people. pic.twitter.com/7jBCwzH4pD
— Charl Blignaut (@sa_poptart) October 1, 2017
Schweppes changed the colour of its soda water branding on its bottles to grey, which made it look like its tonic water labels. It has now changed the labels – tonic water is yellow, and soda water has a stripe of grey.
“We took some time to look at our packaging with the feedback received from consumers and decided not to simply revert to the previous design,” says Munzhelele.
The response sat well with many consumers who applauded the brand for taking responsibility.
Love this!!!! Especially since I accidentally picked up the wrong bottle the other day and we all thought it was off! https://t.co/117MdeTPb6
— Abby Buchanan (@OneStilettoBlog) November 13, 2018
I retweet this in the spirit of more better GnTs this summer… https://t.co/XuNmTpAX7F
— Charl Blignaut (@sa_poptart) November 13, 2018
Look @NandosSA … Not promising to call every disgruntled customer ( and never actually doing so because it's impossible)…but acknowledging and apologizing. Hot apology, hotter than your peri peri sauce. Come on, don't be chicken, just do it😜😜😝😝…. https://t.co/96lJylgR5G
— Redi Tlhabi (@RediTlhabi) November 14, 2018
This article was originally written by Business Insider
