Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Baby Carrots: Eat Em Like Junk Food


In between watching The Bachelor, Chris Soules, squirm while deciding who his “true” love is,


advertisers were smart enough to play off of the emotional roller coaster that women everywhere were on. I mean, The Bachelor season finale my as well be the Super Bowl for women. Anyways, there were commercials for all things women…including every woman’s favorite, chocolate.  Being the dork that I am, all of these advertisements made me think of an article I read recently about trying to get more people to eat fruits and vegetables by using similar tactics that junk food company’s use. A company did a small pilot of this back in 2010 and actually had quite a bit success. For those of us that watched The Bachelor last night, here is a commercial for baby carrots tailored to that audience…


Now does this make me want to jump off the couch and go get some baby carrots? Oddly enough, yes. I mean I am a dietitian and only eat kale, apples, carrots, and sometimes celery as a treat :) Ok so maybe I am a bit odd, but would the average person? That remains to be seen, but the research seems to show some positive results.

The power of advertisements and marketing
Advertisements and marketing have a HUGE impact on us whether we acknowledge it or not. I mean if it didn't, would companies spend millions of dollars a year on it? They are all vying for their brand and product to be sexy and desirable enough to get people to actually go out and purchase it, which can be a challenge due to competition and humans just being lazy. Think of it this way, how often do you see commercials for a delicious looking pizza and think, “Man I don’t just want that, I NEED that?” How many of you actually have enough ambition to actually pick up the phone and order that pizza? If you are like me, that pretty much never happens. However, the idea of that pizza sticks around and the next time I am legitimately hungry (and not just annoyed at Chris for settling) and having a splurge day I might just treat myself.


Where are you going with this Beth?
Should we have cool advertisements and marketing for fruits and vegetables? YES!  Will this type of marketing make you jump off the couch, run to the fridge, and chow down on baby carrots? Probably not, however so much of marketing is subliminal. After watching this commercial, and if it were up to me, being exposed to several similar advertisements, the next time you were hungry you might just consciously or unconsciously think, “Man I could really go for some baby carrots.”   
Not only would this help Americans eat more fruits and vegetables, but it would also help out those fruit and vegetable farmers, who often do not receive federal subsidies (but that’s another story). If companies started using their extremely creative minds to market and make fruits and vegetables sexy it would be a game changer; just like having two Bachelorettes…





Yikes! Well I am off to chow down on baby carrots. Until next time!

Keep it Fresh,
Keep it Green,

Beth



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