Totally ridiculous. After speaking with someone from the National Peanut Board the other day, I'm feeling a little hypersensitive to advertising that targets consumers' fears about foods the media has labeled as "bad" or "unsafe."
I don't like how consumers are being told to practice moderation because the industry can't. There is corn and high fructose corn syrup in so many products, it's hard to avoid. Even products that aren't food have corn in them.
Also interesting to me that they should have a white woman as the uptight corn syrup-phobic, judgmental mom and the black woman as the laid-back mom who is aware of the other's ignorance but chooses not to call her out on it. I think it's being assumed that it's white, upper middle class moms who are soaking up the majority of the anti-high-fructose-corn-syrup information and that's why they're targeting them and trying to make them feel embarrassed.
On the one hand, that's very smart, from a psychological advertising perspective, but it's kind of disgusting and creepy too. And way to play up stereotypes.
I don't know. I have to check out some of the other spots and digest a little more. This particular one just struck me, that's all.
I saw this commercial and felt the same way. It was just kind of slipped in there. I'll have to pay attention to where I saw it and let you know. It also angered me as it made the concerned woman seem like an alarmist. In a country with so much diabetes and obesity, how silly of us for being concerned about a little sugar in....everything!
ReplyDeleteCreepy, right? It made me kind of angry. It seems like brainwashing. Cause you're right—it's not just in juice, it's in freaking everything, which makes it really hard for people to regulate their intake.
ReplyDeleteHah, sorry. It just ticks me off that these commercials actually made it to the air. I don't know if I would go as far as to say they're outright lying to people, but how can you practice moderation if a certain ingredient is in everything you eat? If the industry didn't put it in so many things, there wouldn't be a problem with people being able to take in only a little bit.