Tropicana Nutrition Center Debuts At Wal-Mart

Tropicana Products Inc. has created an end-aisle cooler display designed to promote its cartons of fruit juice using a nutrition theme. Designated "Tropicana Nutrition Centers," the program was unveiled recently in the new 40,000-square-foot Wal-Mart prototype stores, which are designed to offer consumers more convenient food shopping."Our goal was to create a merchandising vehicle to communicate the health benefits of Tropicana products and educate consumers," says Tom Hogan, director of national accounts for the Bradenton, Fla.-based juice company. "More and more people are interested in the nutrition of their foods, and we want to disseminate that information at the point of merchandising."The new display, produced by Insight Resources, also in Bradenton, includes headers and other support materials that stress the nutritional value of the company's products. Photos of consumers engaged in healthy activities tie into bulleted points that talk about the products' nutritional benefits. Products include the 64- and 96-ounce cartons of calcium-fortified orange juice, the Pure Premium brand, the vitamin-enriched juice versions and grapefruit juice. Take-one brochures provide further details on the health benefits offered by the products.The freestanding cooler is approximately 7 feet high with the header in place and can be outfitted in cooler widths of 4, 6 or 8 feet. The Wal-Mart test stores, which include three locations in Arkansas, feature a 6-foot version at the front of the store, Hogan explains. These Wal-Mart stores, officially called Neighborhood Markets but known as "Small-Marts," are designed to carry grocery and pharmacy items.The Nutrition Centers may be placed in other chains as well, Hogan says, with several supermarkets examining the concept. "We plan to take it everywhere we can," he says. "We want to give it as much mass appeal as possible." That includes customizing headers with the chain's logo when desired. While opening night at Wal-Mart included a special projector that flashed eight brightly colored Tropicana health messages onto the floor around the cooler, that was a special feature designed for that one event, a spokeswoman says.Tropicana's marketers are taking this aggressive approach to the brand because it is the fifth-largest brand overall in terms of supermarket sales, Hogan says, but it doesn't do well in getting placements commensurate with that sales strength. "Coke and Pepsi do a good job of getting secondary and tertiary display placements, and you don't see that happening with orange juice," he says. "This concept allows us to leverage our benefits to create incremental beverage locations."

Tropicana Nutrition Center Debuts At Wal-Mart

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