Walk down the beverage aisle and you'll find a water for every taste. You can buy water that's smart, water that's flavored, municipal water that's been purified using reverse osmosis, even water from places as far away as France and Fiji. Each brand is pure bunk designed to separate a fool from his money.
How do I know this? I did a few projects for Pepsi on the Aquafina brand.
But now there's a brand that elevates the art of aqueous bullshit to a whole new level. Llanllyr Source claims to come from "beneath certified organic fields in west Wales in the UK."
It must be fantastic. Look at the stunning packaging. Read the fabulous story on their website. Ooooo, they have a recyclable can! (Hey, wait a minute, aren't all cans recyclable?)
I can just see the sheep smugly loading this overpriced H2O into the back of their Prii blissfully thinking they are doing their part to help the environment.
As for me. I'll continue to fill my glass with the tap water that comes all the way from Lake Michigan. You can almost taste the lake trout in every glass.
Posts
"Aqueous bullshit" was pure poetry.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mandy. I actually rewrote the post around that phrase after it revealed itself to me.
ReplyDeleteI find it ironic that you are railing against the basic tenets of your industry. What product isn't slathered in bovine excrement?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, a basic tenet of advertising is deception? Tendency, not tenet. Since the Mad Men days, companies like Apple have marketed with the perfect balance of humor and transfer of useful information. Ask any designer how their computers have increased their productivity since 1985... if you want proof that this product delivers what it promised. Sure, the company/products have problems, as all do (constant OS headaches, etc), but ask any designer to go back to paste up and x-acto blades, or a director to go back splicing sliver nitrate film, and you'll realize that some advertising works well. There is a high ground to shoot for that can increase sales and also benefit people's lives. Advertising is as basic as a blacksmith hanging art of an anvil outside their shop door, it's as useful as wayfinding for what you need.
ReplyDeleteHey Gene--
ReplyDeleteAnonymous here. My comment was directed more at Harvey and his bottled water rant. As someone who regularly enjoys his postings and shares some common ground, I was commenting, indirectly, on his candor. I DO believe that if honesty and fact were a strict requirement, the industry would be in serious trouble.
Anon, Having been a perpetrator of BS myself (hey I once compared the suspension of the Chevy Celebrity to that of a Corvette in a TV spot. That's some world-class doo) I agree that BS can be a good thing. It provides the fertilizer that helps things grow, in this case our clients' brands. But like all things, too much is too much and this just feels like too much to me.
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