The Orange is a Lie: How a Vitamin Deficiency Built an Empire

Summary

Brain Driven Brands - Episode Summary: "The Orange is a Lie: How a Vitamin Deficiency Built an Empire"

Release Date: April 8, 2025
Host: Sarah Levinger

In this illuminating episode of Brain Driven Brands, host Sarah Levinger delves into the fascinating history of how the orange industry ingeniously transformed a perceived vitamin C deficiency into a thriving market empire. Through a captivating narrative, Sarah explores the advanced neuromarketing strategies employed by orange producers to outmaneuver competitors like the apple industry, offering invaluable insights for modern e-commerce brands aiming to replicate such success.

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1. Introduction: Setting the Stage

Sarah opens the discussion by highlighting the often-overlooked strategic maneuvers behind the orange industry's dominance. She emphasizes the importance of understanding consumer behavior and the psychological tactics that can elevate a brand from obscurity to household name.

Notable Quote:
"We're talking about how a vitamin deficiency built an entire empire." (02:25)

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2. The Origins of Orange's Market Dominance

Historical Context:
In the early 1900s, oranges were not the sought-after commodity they are today. Primarily used as casual gifts or stocking stuffers, demand was minimal despite overproduction. Facing the challenge of excess supply, orange manufacturers sought innovative ways to stimulate consumer interest.

Vitamin C Awareness:
The turning point came with the rising awareness of vitamin deficiencies, particularly vitamin C, thanks to scientist Elmer McCollum. McCollum's assertions that insufficient vitamin C intake could lead to severe health issues, such as scurvy, created a foundational narrative that orange producers could exploit.

Notable Quote:
"Elmer McCollum was the original wellness influencer, right." (04:25)

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3. Creating Urgency: From Gifts to Necessities

Strategic Messaging:
Unlike the apple industry's preventative health message, which promoted apples as a means to maintain long-term health ("An apple a day keeps the doctor away"), orange producers tapped into the immediate concern of existing vitamin C deficiencies. By positioning orange juice as a necessary daily intake to prevent scurvy, they instilled a sense of urgency in consumers.

Ritualizing Consumption:
Orange manufacturers didn't stop at creating a demand; they embedded orange juice into daily routines. Advertising campaigns urged consumers to "drink a glass every morning," effectively turning orange juice into a habitual necessity rather than an occasional treat.

Notable Quote:
"They started producing ads that said, drink a glass every morning. It was ritualized immediately." (07:34)

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4. The Apple vs. Orange Marketing Battle

Apple's Preventative Approach:
The apple industry, with its century-old slogan, focused on apples' role in promoting general wellness. This message, while positive, lacked the immediacy needed to drive daily consumption.

Orange's Urgent Solution:
In contrast, oranges were marketed as the immediate solution to a pressing health concern. By aligning orange juice consumption with the urgent need to prevent vitamin C deficiency, the orange industry successfully differentiated itself from apples.

Market Impact:
Despite apples having a longer history in health-related marketing, the orange industry's strategic approach allowed orange juice to carve out a substantial market share, illustrating the power of urgent and solution-oriented branding.

Notable Quote:
"Apples had the slogan, oranges had the system." (22:28)

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5. Behavioral Branding Insights for Modern E-Commerce

Integrating into Daily Habits:
A pivotal takeaway from the episode is the significance of embedding a brand's product into consumers' existing routines or establishing new, habitual behaviors. Orange juice manufacturers achieved this by aligning consumption with breakfast routines, a practice that modern brands can emulate.

Urgency vs. Prevention:
Brands should assess whether their messaging addresses an immediate need or a long-term goal. Creating a sense of urgency can compel consumers to prioritize and integrate a product into their daily lives more effectively than purely preventative messaging.

Packaging Convenience:
Simplifying the consumer experience is crucial. The orange industry's move from whole fruits to bottled juice addressed the convenience factor, making daily consumption effortless. E-commerce brands should strive to make their products as accessible and easy to use as possible.

Notable Quote:
"Find an industry that taps into an existing human desire. Make your shit a little bit easier than the incumbent dominating companies and then message it a little more urgently." (18:29)

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6. Conclusions: Building a Brand that Lasts

Sarah concludes by reinforcing the importance of understanding and influencing consumer behavior through strategic branding. The orange industry's success story serves as a blueprint for e-commerce brands:

• Tap into Existing Desires: Identify and align with fundamental human needs.
• Create Urgent Solutions: Position products as essential for immediate issues.
• Embed into Daily Routines: Make consumption habitual through consistent and convenient integration.

By mastering these tactics, brands can not only survive market shifts but thrive exponentially, much like the orange empire that was built on addressing a vitamin deficiency.

Notable Quote:
"Brands are built on behavior 100% of the time." (24:40)

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Key Takeaways for E-Commerce Brands:

1. Identify and Align with Fundamental Needs: Understand the core desires and pain points of your target audience.
2. Create Urgent Solutions: Position your product as a necessary solution to immediate problems rather than a supplementary option.
3. Integrate Seamlessly into Daily Routines: Ensure that your product fits effortlessly into existing consumer behaviors or establish new habits around its use.
4. Prioritize Convenience: Simplify the consumer experience to encourage regular and repeat usage.
5. Leverage Strategic Messaging: Use compelling narratives that resonate emotionally and logically with your audience to drive engagement and loyalty.

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Final Thoughts:
Sarah Levinger's exploration of the orange industry's strategic triumph over apples offers profound lessons in neuromarketing and behavioral branding. By dissecting historical successes, modern e-commerce brands can glean actionable strategies to cultivate their own loyal customer bases and build enduring market presences.

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For more insights and strategies on building brand loyalty and integrating products into consumer habits, tune into Brain Driven Brands and explore the rest of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast Network.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. Welcome back to Brain Driven Brands. I'm your co host, usually host a different podcast, but I stopped by this one a couple times a week too with the lovely main host, Sarah. What's up?

[B]

How's it, how's it going? How's your life? How's your brand? How's your mental health these days? I have reminded myself recently to check in on that because hey, we do that for asking. Yeah.

[A]

Depending on the day, it's super up and down roller coaster, you know, just mild freakouts, midlife crises.

[B]

Did you buy anything ridiculous yet? If you're having also midlife, man, you just turned 29. I hope to God this is not your mid life. Quarter life. There you go.

[A]

Third life.

[B]

Third life is probably what I'd call it. Although I did see a stat the other day that said middle age for the Average American is 37.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you are 7. Yeah, I'm middle aged.

[A]

I know. I do the thing where. So if you, if you take like a, like a lifespan and shrink it down into one 24 hour day. For me at 29 years old, it's like 10, 15am or something, which isn't that bad. Mean we're getting close to noon.

[B]

All right.

[A]

But to me, I think about like 10am I'm just popping my second rebel.

[B]

You know, like it's just getting out of bed. Like I'm not even up doing stuff yet.

[A]

It's early.

[B]

That's pretty funny. I mean, yeah, everybody just double check on your friends right now. We got a lot of tariffs, we got a lot of chat. GPT. We got a lot of unrest in the industry. We got a lot of fear, we got a lot.

[A]

My mental health. Just lovely little bagel sandwich delivery.

[B]

Oh, that looks so good. I am going to order a cheeseburger for lunch today. Okay. But I don't want to, I don't want to talk about like the bad things in the industry because that's, you know, we're all having the conversation on Twitter right now. I like to keep it light, we like to keep it upbeat because there are some very good things happening in D2C. Anytime you have a giant economic shift, businesses die. But a lot of businesses grow heavy, heavily, like exponentially. So I want to talk about a particular time period and a particular brand today. I'm literally just going to tell you a story. It's not. Watch it.

[A]

Well, the way you said time period, I was like, oh, is that a pun? Are we talking watches?

[B]

We, we are not talking watches day. Good pun though, right? That's great. That's great. Injection there. But no, we're not talking watches today. We are going to talk about how the orange is a lie. The orange is a lie. We're talking about how a vitamin deficiency built an entire empire. And I want you to guess as to which empire it built before I go into the story just based off of the title. Go. Yes, the orange is alive.

[A]

Something to do with the vitamin C and orange.

[B]

Ah, you're getting closer. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Okay, so let me set up the story. I saw this. I can't take credit for it. I think his name is. It was Matt. I think it was from Max on Twitter. He was. He wrote like an entire post. And I saw it on Instagram because somebody sent me the post that sent me the post and sent me the post. It was a chain. But I looked up this story because I was so fascinated by what this guy found that I was like, this cannot be a real thing. But okay, we'll start by setting it up. Early 1900s, right? Nobody really craved oranges. Oranges were not, like, big business as they are now. Like Tropicana, like, all these, like, simple fruit, like, whatever it is. In the 1900s, they really only just used it for, like, stocking stuffers and gifts. Like, you would get an orange as, like a. Like a housewarming gift. People would be like, here's a fruit basket and orange is in there somewhere. So people did not want oranges. And so, of course, orange manufacturers are like orange producers that own the actual fruit trees. We're like, how in the hell do we get people to want oranges? And I think this is pretty prevalent for D.C. nowadays. How do you get somebody to want something they don't want? Like, they just have no reason to need it. So these fruit tree, like, businesses decided they were going to just hijack the morning routine and turn fruit into a pharmaceutical. And by doing that, they were able to, like, basically create demand, which I have said many, many times, you can't create demand. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this because this is what they did.

[A]

I mean, like, the. The natural demand they're tapping into is the want and desire to be healthy.

[B]

100%. They didn't just manufacture it out of nothing. They actually connected their product, stole it.

[A]

And put it on their brand, on their product.

[B]

Exactly. So let me set this up for you. Turn of the century California is the place that you go to get oranges, right? Drowning in oranges. Like, there was so many overproduction of oranges, that they literally were just trashing them because nobody wanted them. So they decided that they were kind of sitting on all of this, like, perishable product. So they decided they were going to invent a need for the perishable product. Right? Because if you can't sell the product, you're going to have to sell something else, which is technically a problem that the product solves. So here's what they did. In the 1920s, scientists were starting to discover, like, vitamins were kind of important to the health of people, right? Nobody really knew what they were. Scientists just said, vitamins are a thing. So literally 20 years before this even happened, we started to hear in the culture, there was a large cultural movement around, you need more vitamins in your diet. Apparently there was this guy, Elmer McCollum. Is his name McCollum? Yeah. Was the original wellness influencer, right. That warned Americans about this term called acidosis. It's basically a vague, like, metabolic issue where if you don't get enough of a certain type of vitamin, AKA vitamin C, you'll basically just. Your whole body will, like, become too. What's the word? Like, become too basic. You have to, like, increase the acid in your body. This is fascinating stuff. Like, I can't get enough of this dumb story. It's the most interesting thing I've read on Twitter this week. So he recommended more citrus. More citrus. You need more citrus fruit in your diet. But the public didn't understand vitamin deficiencies, so they were just kind of like, I don't know what to do with that guy. Right? So orange juice became kind of this miracle medicine because of this guy who was like, if you don't drink oranges or. Or lemons, your whole body is too basic and you're going to die. So the orange manufacturers, the OR produce orange producers, figured this out. They were like, oh, this guy over here is. Is saying something that pertains to our particular product that might sell the problem better than we solve it. So they attached oranges to vitamin C because of a cultural event that was happening 20 years prior to them. And they decided to just say, you need vitamin C in your diet. The only way to get it is through oranges because your body doesn't produce vitamin C. And then they just sold vitamin C in the package of an orange.

[A]

Man, I wish we could go back in time. Guy built an empire. I've been like, have you guys tried eating fruit? You won't get scurvy anymore.

[B]

This is what I'm saying. This is what I'M saying. So the orange industry basically just didn't stop at health claims. Right. They made it a ritual. Instead of just saying, eat an orange every now and then, they started producing ads that said, drink a glass every morning. It was ritualized immediately. Now, for you guys, you already do this because people put the watch on every single morning. Put on. Put on armor. Basically. We talked about this a lot. Like, your whole brand is just, like, starting to be amazing. Yeah, put on the armor. Ritualize it. Fascinating stuff.

[A]

Vitamins in it, though. That's a problem.

[B]

We should, I mean, should work. You're obviously selling something different, but this is fascinating. So the secondary thing that happened here is a second industry was born because this random influencer who was a scientist said, you don't have enough vitamin C in your body. People started kind of gravitating towards the fact that, okay, I don't have enough vitamin C, but I don't know how to solve it. The orange manufacturers came in here and they said, hey, we've got vitamin C. We got a lot of it. It's in orange. Do you want oranges? People were like, okay, sure, but like, I'm not going to eat oranges on the daily. So what they did was, this is fascinating stuff. They went and produced something to get the orange juice out. So they started selling, like, at home juicers, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So people could get the juice out. And then. And then they started to. The orange juice manufacturers figured out that if we just juice the oranges and bottle it, people will buy it en masse. And that is how the orange juice industry was created.

[A]

I do think, like, that the, the convenience aspect of it can be overlooked here. But I think that's so important because, let's be real, oranges are a pain in the ass to eat.

[B]

Oh, my God, they're terrible. I hate. I don't have them in my house.

[A]

I. I will only eat an orange if my wife peels it and cuts it up for me because I'm like, wow, I'll get sticky from fingertips.

[B]

Oh, my God, what is this with, like, the millennial mill and not liking stick sticky? My husband is the same thing. He will not put any sort of syrup on our children's pancakes because he's like, wow.

[A]

I mean, I'm a pancakes guy. I'm not a.

[B]

Okay, but like, sticky. Okay, all right, all right, continue. All right, but anyway, your wife is treating you like a toddler. I get it. All right.

[A]

Like a king. But anyways.

[B]

Can'T open your own oranges. I don't know about that.

[A]

I know. Choose not to. I have more important things.

[B]

Choice.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, dear God. Continue. Okay.

[A]

Um, no, but, like, so they. They do have a, you know, real problem. People are vitamin deficient. They have a good solution for it, but the solution for it doesn't fit in neatly to people's lives.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I think, like, that's the big thing they did here is like, how. How can you package the thing that plays into an existing demand in a way that's as easy as what people are already doing? Everyone was opening the fridge every morning to get water or milk or make a coffee.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They made it just as easy to get the thing that they're.

[B]

Yeah, it was a behavior that was already happening. And I work with so many brands that are like, Sarah, how do we get our ads to hit better? And I'm like, you're not even injected to the behavior. You guys aren't even on, like, the roster of their daily activities. You gotta get injected into the daily activity of what they're already doing or find a way to inject into an activity that has nothing to do with you but that you kind of solve. Like oranges. Now the interesting part is this is like a random bonus, like, trivia thing, whatever in here. Apparently, in the 1950s, the government needed shelf stable vitamin C for soldiers. So they decided to start freezing it. And that's how the frozen juice section became a thing, because the government needed shelf stable vitamin C. I'm like, I had no idea this was even a freaking thing. So by the 1950s, frozen concentrate became a suburban kitchen staple because it was easy to serve. To Nate's point, it was convenient, affordable, deeply linked to being a good parent by that point, because you were giving your children vitamins. So it wasn't just a drink. It was 100, like a badge of middle class responsibility.

[A]

That's so crazy. At what point did they apply this to apples and say, an apple a day keeps. Yes.

[B]

Okay, so now I need to know. I mean, we could ask.

[A]

That saying had to come from a competitor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It was sitting on an apple orchard looking at oranges blow up and be like, what are we doing?

[B]

I know. What are we doing?

[A]

You can eat the skin on ours. Apples are easier to eat.

[B]

Okay, so now I'm going to ask chat. When did this happen with apples? Because Jack can go search the Internet really quickly for me. So. Okay, so unlike oranges, which was like seeing significant marketing push in the only early 20th century, apples have a different promotional history. Apparently an apple A Day Keeps the Doctor Away dates back to the 19th century and reflects a long standing belief in general health and benefits of Apple's. Organized marketing efforts around this, though, didn't happen until the early 1930s.

[A]

Oh, so apples beat oranges to the punch.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Oranges is like, we gotta make juice.

[B]

This is like, we gotta make juice. This is interesting though. The Washington Apple Commission is apparently a thing. Washington Apple Commission, established during this period, utilized magazine ads, radio spots, and billboards to promote apples because they wanted to integrate them into daily routines. And then by the 1950s, there was a national Apple Institute started directing campaigns towards dental and medical professionals in schools. That's why you give your teacher an apple.

[A]

This actually. Well, wow.

[B]

That might be why I'm like, oh, my God.

[A]

Okay. This actually, I think, is now a better case study of oranges because not only was this not a native behavior to people, there's already a competitor dominating the market and already had tapped in to people's need to be healthy.

[B]

True.

[A]

And like, that must have been daunting and intimidating. And I feel like where we're at in the world right now, I feel like everyone thinks that we're in, like, late stage E. Com, which we're not.

[B]

No, no. But it's like, just starting.

[A]

Yeah. Like, so crazy. But I feel like everyone thinks like, everything's been done. We can't break into that industry. About how daunting it would be to break into the apple industry when people have been saying, an apple a day keeps the doctor away for 100 years.

[B]

Yes. Since the earliest 20th century. I mean, that's a long time.

[A]

But all they had to do was just make it easier for people to eat.

[B]

Dude. And this is breaking my brain because everybody's like, the algorithms have changed and, like, it's interest based. And there's a for you page. And this is the newest fangled thing. No, A brand new competitor in the fruit space. Just like rose over freaking night. Just because they said it better.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Said it better. Packaged it as easy. The next best thing.

[B]

Oh, my God. This is a. Okay, so now I need to know.

[A]

Shout out to this guy. What'd you say his name was? Elmer.

[B]

Elmer.

[A]

Did he make the glue too, or.

[B]

Is that a different Elmer McCollum? No, I think it's a different guy. This is Elmer McCollum.

[A]

That'd be crazy if he was also a glue mogul.

[B]

Oh, my God. Wouldn't that be crazy? He would be involved everywhere. He'd be like, now I own.

[A]

He'd be Like, I'm so sticky. What can we use? And then he's like, maybe that's why.

[B]

Maybe he had like an ASMR need. And he was like, I need everything sticky. Okay, so now my follow up question. If apples were winning, why did oranges do better? Right. And we already understand it's convenience thing and it's a messaging thing, but I want to know specifically. So here's what chat has. We're going to ask chat for the entire episode because it could do more reasons Chat just sponsored by chat, which.

[A]

Is annoying because I think you pay him more monthly than you pay me.

[B]

I actually kind of do. Hey, I told you I would buy you lunch today. Okay. Okay. So here's why it outpaced apples.

[A]

Thank you. I'll take a tomahawk ribeye and a bottle of whiskey. It's $300.

[B]

These you're inexpensive, like date over there. This is the interesting part about this though. Okay. Apple said a 50 year head start as the healthy fruit. This I mean, and I'm not even kidding. They apparently took apples and made 500 copies of dental health firms or films. Sorry, dental health films. Promoting this apple as nature's toothbrush.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Which was a message endorsed by the American Dental Association.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

What is going on? Oranges came in and was like, now we think we can do better.

[A]

We need a documentary on this.

[B]

Yes, we do.

[A]

On the fruit wars.

[B]

The fruit war.

[A]

20Th century.

[B]

This is the most insane rabbit hole I've ever gone down. But it is teaching me so much about what it takes to be the next greatest brand. It doesn't matter if your competitor has a century of legacy behind them. If you come in and you say it just a little bit better and you package it in a way that people can understand. Ooh, overnight people. And I'm not even kidding, when I say overnight, I literally mean like within the span of 24 hours. You could see this just explode.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Especially with the advent of like social media. Okay, so apples had a 50 year head start as a healthy fruit. Right. So the phrase apple day keeps the doctor away originated in 1866 in Wales. It positioned apples as general wellness food, but it was very vague. Because health is nice, but it's not urgent. I love that chat calls this out. It's not urgent. A lot of brands nowadays are using vague, generalized, non urgent messaging and pairing it with urgent, heuristic level, hacky kind of stuff to try and compensate for it.

[A]

Yeah. And I feel like the apple was communicated as like preventative, whereas the orange was like, no, no, no, you're already sick. You already have this problem. Our fruit will fix it. And like, I think that just speaks to humans nature for sure of like, yeah, preventative stuff. And we, I mean, we all know we should eat right and work out and be healthy and not have six whiskeys tonight. But what I'm more interested in is how to beat the hangover tomorrow morning. Like, that's the more urgent. And switching it from a preventative measure to telling them, no, no, you're already sick. You're already sick, already have this issue.

[B]

You have a deficiency. Yes. This is why I 100% believe, especially in the U.S. i don't think that insurance is purchased because people are trying to like, prevent the future and are concerned about who they're going to be tomorrow. They do it because they have to, because the law requires it. That's the only reason they purchase insurance. So these insurance companies are trying to make this about like, keep your kids safe, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, nobody cares about that.

[A]

This is a scam that we are forced to participate in. We're forced to participate, just like taxes. But we won't get into that on this.

[B]

I cry. I cry. Okay, so oranges, here's how they won this war of urgency, right? So early 1900s, 1920s, oranges are positioned as one specific thing, a medical necessity. Apples were positioned as, like, this will help you do better at some point. Oranges, they prevented scurvy, vitamin C deficiency. So during the flu season, they're pitched as a moon boosters. I remember vividly as a child when Emergency became big in the industry. This was the very first supplement that I ever remember actually having some sort of a childhood level association with because my mom was like, emergency, you're getting sick. Emergency, Emergency. We didn't go to oranges anymore. We now went to.

[A]

They packaged it even easier for us even. Yeah, that's the next evolution.

[B]

Oh, I'm scared of this. I'm so scared. So whoever is the easiest wins. Is that what this is saying?

[A]

Yeah, I think so.

[B]

Oh, my God. My whole life is a lie.

[A]

All right, so listen, if you guys are out there thinking about starting a brand and you're like, why have you guys been talking about fruit for 20 minutes? Listen, here's, listen, here's what you need to take out of this is what.

[B]

You need to know.

[A]

Find an industry that taps into an existing human desire.

[B]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[A]

Make your shit a little bit easier than the incumbent dominating companies and then message it a little more urgently.

[B]

Yes, that's it.

[A]

I think you'll go build a billion dollar company.

[B]

Yes. I don't think it'd be that hard. I think it'd be like, hey, we can get it to you in 10 minutes and it's going to fix this problem that actually hurts today.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. Follow up to this bonus level. Chat brought up a good point. Oranges has a better business model. This is pretty critical for, I think any E comm, anybody that's selling anything. Apples are eaten, but it's one per unit. They literally told people you only need one a day. One oranges became a drink. Which means now I can sell multiple oranges per glass.

[A]

And a lot of oranges and a lot. To fill up a bottle of oj.

[B]

It literally takes like five of them. Like, it's not, I mean, like a lot of oranges.

[A]

We recently bought a juicer. I don't mean to flex that hard on this.

[B]

You must be doing so well.

[A]

We did recently buy a juicer because now today orange juice is filled with like a bunch of other crap that's not oranges. And we were like, why? That's dumb. So then we bought a juicer and bought oranges. And like one orange is like the smallest mana juice I've ever seen.

[B]

Yeah. It's like this much juice.

[A]

Yeah. So, yeah, they're probably fitting like 30 oranges in a bottle.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So tldr here, man. Yeah, you, you. I think it's critical.

[A]

This is such a great case study.

[B]

I'm just like, I. I found this randomly and then I went down the rabbit hole. I was like, oh my God.

[A]

So like, I think about, I think about Hexclad is kind of doing this because they message like away from like, there's no forever chemicals in our pans. Like normal Teflon non stick stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And like that's been the selling point for cast iron and stainless steel for a while. Like, hey, we don't have this toxic shit. Shit in it. I wonder if there's a way to do that more urgently rather than like could. Because I think like they're messaging kind of in a preventative way. In a way of like, hey, that, that pan over there is bad. Ours doesn't have that bad thing.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because you already have that in your house.

[A]

Prevent that. Is there a way to be okay? No, no. You have a problem now.

[B]

How do you make it so that people have to buy it often, consume it often? Yeah. That's the biggest issue, I think, is most brands are going after A very specific problem which they understand. This is urgent. This is something that we can fix. We understand the problem. Your business model, though, is not set up for you to sell it often. Yeah, especially for all clad because like I have all clad pans. I've had them for 10 years.

[A]

All clad or hexlad?

[B]

All clad? Well, I have both now. I have both because I'm doing well, let me just say.

[A]

Yeah, you must be doing.

[B]

I just have very nice friends. Thank you, Joanna Bldr on this. Okay, so oranges were able to out market their Apple's competitor in a system where people didn't want what they had literally at all because they were sticky, they were difficult to actually use, and nobody was really using them for that use case. Here's how they did it. First step, they sell. They actually sold a problem. Vitamin deficiency being something that was incredibly potent for their customer type number two, they created a habit loop because it was daily juice. They built that into the system. You need juice every day. That's what they said in the marketing, the advertising, and that's what people actually attach to. They anchored incredibly well. Number three, they delivered a higher use case per unit because a whole glass of juice that you drink every day requires about five fricking oranges. That's so many oranges. And then last on here, they used emotional urgency, not just health claims. Emotional urgency. Apples had the slogan, oranges had the system.

[A]

Apples really dropped the ball here.

[B]

Poor apples. I feel bad.

[A]

What's market share today of apples versus oranges? How does it pan out?

[B]

What's the market share for apples today? Like, just apples in general. My problem is it's going to come up with Apple.

[A]

Is it going to be like, yeah, apples versus oranges. What do Americans spend more money on?

[B]

Let's see. Market share for apples and oranges. All right. It's searching. It's so sad that we use chat in this way now. People just don't even have to think.

[A]

If this comes up. Apples, by the way, we're going to have to cut this.

[B]

I know, right? This whole entire thing. As of 2022 in the United States, Apple's accounted for approximately 4.4% of fresh fruit sales. Specific market share for oranges during this period isn't readily available. Interesting.

[A]

Well, not saying only fresh fruit, but we would have oranges plus the juice.

[B]

Yeah, let's see.

[A]

Yeah, let's assume it's oranges for content.

[B]

Orange juice and apple juice. Okay. Sorry, Scotty, we're almost done and then we'll get on the next one. Okay, so what about for orange juice and apple juice? Let's see what Chat says. Orange juice in the United states totaled approximately 3.2 billion for the 52 weeks ending May 19, 2024. Orange juice market was valued at 6.2 billion. The apple juice market is valued at approximately 17.4 billion in 2023. So Apple's still technically winning. Yeah.

[A]

Take this out.

[B]

Technically speaking, apples are still winning, but.

[A]

A $6 billion a year business for OJ is nothing new.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Turn your nose.

[B]

I was gonna say they're doing well. Don't put that in, Scotty.

[A]

All right, cut out that whole part. The outro. Sarah, go.

[B]

Okay, so I've done like 17 TLDRs here, but what do you think about this? Especially for e.com takeaways? 100%. Drink your RJ. Because I think OJ is apparently important. But also, if you're going to do this and you're going to do this, well, I think you got to understand what you do compared to what people want you to do, because oftentimes we. We just make a cutesy slogan and we're like, oh, this is gonna work, and then forget entirely. That behavior is where the entirety of businesses are grown. Brands are built on behavior 100 of the time.

[A]

That's it. I love this episode. This is great.

[B]

Did you. Oh, good. Okay. I was like, I don't have anything today, so we're gonna talk about origin. Interesting though, right? This is, like, crazy. I had no idea.

[A]

All right, everyone, thanks for listening.

[B]

Wait, wait, wait. Where can people find you?

[A]

I was just gonna say thanks for listening to this podcast. You should be listening to Tactical and Practical as well.

[B]

Great.

[A]

I said as well, not instead of.

[B]

Okay, although in tandem, too.

[A]

If you have to pick one, pick this one.

[B]

Pick the right one.

[A]

My plug for this episode.

[B]

I'm dying. You can follow me at Sarah Levenger anywhere you consume content. Please come check us out at tetherinsights IO both because we actually study consumers specifically their behavior and their habits, mostly so that you can take your E Commerce brand and stick your products right into the habits that they already have. That's what we're doing at Tether Insight. So please go over there, check us out. Otherwise, thanks for coming. This is a good episode that was really weird. Brain Driven Brands is part of the Learn and Laugh series on the Quickfire Podcast Network and is presented by Tether Insights. For more information, go to tetherinsights IO.