Capri-Sun recently worked adults into a tizzy by announcing a new packaging design that the brand will use to extend its reach into the Ready-to-Drink (RTD) segment.
By “new,” we mean a regular old plastic bottle. Individual pouches aren’t ideal for places where RTD bottles and cans are prevalent, like convenience store coolers.
What Capri-Sun didn’t do, however, was announce that the bottles would replace its signature pouches. Of course, that didn’t stop mostly folks of the millennial demographic from lamenting the departure of the unique packaging, never mind that most of these adults haven’t sipped on a Capri-Sun in ages, save for the rare pouch pilfered from their kids’ stash. The uproar over what was essentially a nothing burger signifies a much larger cultural trend of infantilized marketing and, by extension, branding and packaging design. I’m not going to say that we’re in a period of cultural decline or that adults today are trying to eschew maturity because I don’t know if either is the case.
