“’So kids can peel ‘em.” Each spot ends with the campaign kicker: “Kids love Cuties, because Cuties are made for kids.” “You know why Cuties are so easy to peel?” The voice asks. The voice asks, “You know why Cuties are seedless? ‘Cuz kids hate seeds.” In a third, a little boy sits cross-legged on the floor, peeling a piece of fruit. The 15-second commercials open with a young child’s voice asking, “You know why Cuties are small?” A little arm reaches over a kitchen counter to grab a mandarin from a bowl and the same voice answers, “’Cuz kids have small hands.” In another, a girl in a tutu lies on a sofa with a mandarin in hand.

Back in December, Paramount Citrus launched a $20 million advertising campaign to promote the Cuties brand. Upon these four “unique selling propositions” (to use marketing speak), Paramount Citrus has built an empire.

They are also seedless, sweet, and diminutive. Unzippability is just one of several characteristics that make mandarins supremely marketable. The cheerful image references an agricultural term for this variety-“zipper fruit”-so named because of the ease of removing the peel. Cuties come in a crate-shaped cardboard box or a mesh bag with a label that features a smiling mandarin emerging from its peel through a zipper. Their brand name- Cuties-has practically replaced their horticultural name-mandarins-in the way that Kleenex once replaced “tissue.” Grown in California, Cuties are now the leading brand of mandarin, a citrus category that is on pace to unseat the common lemon from its slot at #2 on the Golden State’s production roster. Today we present the first installment of a long and winding story in which a tiny, seedless fruit becomes the iPhone of the produce aisle. For each topic we tackle, we’ll be developing a multi-part series of interlocking posts, which will combine, we hope, to offer a new lens for viewing the familiar. As you might guess from the name, this blog aims to unlock the ways design factors into the world around us, particularly its role in the everyday-seemingly undesigned-environment. Welcome to Design Decoded, the newest member of Smithsonian’s digital family.

A cutie orange