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
