Orange juice sales had been gradually declining, as more Americans looked to other breakfast choices. We needed to reframe Tropicana’s role at breakfast.

While Americans were drinking less orange juice, cereal remained a popular breakfast choice. And for over a century, milk and cereal has been an American tradition.

Our objective became clear. Disrupt the iconic breakfast pair of milk-and-cereal with a new, unexpected experience.

Tropicana orange juice created a new cereal brand, Tropicana Crunch. It’s the first cereal made to be enjoyed with a pour over of orange juice, instead of milk.

Tropicana Crunch was made with cereal clusters that would stay crisp under orange juice’s acidity. The flakes were honey almond flavor to complement the sweet citrus taste of orange juice.

Tropicana Crunch came in a limited-edition box designed to target cereal nostalgia, with its own cartoon mascot and prize inside: a Tropicana straw to help sip any leftover orange juice from the bowl.

Tropicana’s main audience were Americans who weren’t including orange juice in their breakfast routine. Research revealed that 1 in 5 (15 million) had actually used orange juice on their cereal. Clearly there was an appetite for our orange juice-and-cereal social experiment.

Our communications approach leaned into American’s curiosity to try something odd and new. We positioned Tropicana Crunch as an irresistible breakfast experiment, designed to spark a national debate over whether orange juice on cereal would be tasty or not. Tropicana even acknowledged it wasn’t sure if the idea was meant to be. Leading up to the launch, we continued to fuel the debate that could only be settled by trying Tropicana Crunch.

Before Tropicana Crunch launched, we needed to make sure the cereal would actually pair well with orange juice. Multiple cereal textures and flavors were tested to find the best match.

Leading up to the launch, we used Tropicana social channels to tease the idea with striking visuals of orange juice on cereal and copy “Prepare your mind and cereal bowl for an unforgettable breakfast experience.”

We selected National Orange Juice Day (5/4/22) to launch Tropicana Crunch on Instagram and creating its own website to order.

In just two weeks, the Tropicana Crunch launch gained nearly 4 billion impressions. Pre-launch teasers helped fuel media and social debates. On launch day, thousands of Tropicana Crunch boxes sold out in 7 minutes. While not everyone in America got a box or experienced Tropicana on cereal, everyone could experience watching taste tests and reviews from top-tier news outlets like The Today Show, Access Hollywood, CNN and Food & Wine. All this helped reframe Tropicana orange juice as not just a beverage, but a new breakfast experience, that boosted Tropicana sales by 4.3%.