Recently, Chiquita Banana decided to rebrand themselves to establish a more interactive relationship with their consumers. To handle the rebranding, they tapped DJ Neff who, just last week, sat down with design:related to discuss the project.

DJ Neff said the first thing they focused on was their iconic blue sticker that they put on their bananas. The sticker with the Chiquita Banana woman is already a well known logo, but they wanted to further the brand recognition and reach out to a broader consumer base. In order to achieve this, Neff started by redesigning the original sticker and creating more of a “character” out of the woman and gave her more personality. Here is the original and new version!



From here, Neff created a whole line of different characters and decided on 25 to use.



These characters were inspired by what people do with the sticker after they eat the banana. By creating fun and exciting characters, Neff hoped that consumers would keep the stickers and put them in a variety of different places. I think this is a great idea, because if I started seeing these random blue and yellow characters around town, I would definitely jump online and try to figure out what they were – eventually ending up at the Chiquita Banana website.

They went on to incorporate the sticker characters into their website, by creating an interactive arcade game where consumers can create their own “banana personality” to fight rotten bananas!


Chiquita also went a step further with consumer interaction by creating a social community, where you can create, save, and share your own unique sticker designs with friends. Neff, also set them up with a Facebook fan page to gauge consumer response and get feedback on the new brand.

Chiquita banana has recognized the booming trend in consumers flocking to social networks and getting their product information online. In my opinion, they CRUSHED the rebranding and are effectively adapting to the way consumers interact with brands. By creating this highly interactive website, Facebook fan page, and intriguing character stickers, Chiquita has increased not only their brand equity, but also consumer loyalty immensely! I for one, spent at least an hour messing around on their new site!!!