VitaminWater
Appearance vs. Reality
An Interview with Kari Reed
Introduction
Kari Reed was selected as an "expert" in our field due to her education and experience related to our topic: VitaminWater. She is a 25-year-old woman with her Bachelor of Arts in Marketing. She has also attended several colleges that are known for their art programs in order to enhance her skills in Graphic Design. For a living, Kari designs advertisements of all sorts for businesses, so she has the critical eye and background knowledge necessary to give Lindsey and I some insight into Coca-Cola's marketing campaign. On a more personal level, Kari is an active member of the public who takes her role in the food industry seriously. While she is able to navigate around marketing campaigns, she is also an avid label reader and documentary watcher. In particular, she has become so immersed in learning more about factory farms, surprising ingredients, and marketing ploys that she has exercised the eating habits of a vegetarian for quite a number of years. Lindsey and I were happy to receive a positive response from Kari about interviewing her and she specifically stated that she was "happy to help and never turns down an oppportunity to step up on her soap box!" Within the following four videos, which were recorded on April 5, 2011, it is our hope that the audience will walk away having learned something that they did not know before viewing the videos. In our opinion, it would be unlikely that anyone could remember all the quote-worthy statements that Kari offered, yet there are wonderful messages traced throughout all four videos. Take the following categories for instance: marketing ploys, crystalline fructose, the jellybean rule, visual input, public organizations, food industries, company integrity, public ignorance, and responsibility. If our research impacts 1 person it will be well worth the effort!
Kari Reed was selected as an "expert" in our field due to her education and experience related to our topic: VitaminWater. She is a 25-year-old woman with her Bachelor of Arts in Marketing. She has also attended several colleges that are known for their art programs in order to enhance her skills in Graphic Design. For a living, Kari designs advertisements of all sorts for businesses, so she has the critical eye and background knowledge necessary to give Lindsey and I some insight into Coca-Cola's marketing campaign. On a more personal level, Kari is an active member of the public who takes her role in the food industry seriously. While she is able to navigate around marketing campaigns, she is also an avid label reader and documentary watcher. In particular, she has become so immersed in learning more about factory farms, surprising ingredients, and marketing ploys that she has exercised the eating habits of a vegetarian for quite a number of years. Lindsey and I were happy to receive a positive response from Kari about interviewing her and she specifically stated that she was "happy to help and never turns down an oppportunity to step up on her soap box!" Within the following four videos, which were recorded on April 5, 2011, it is our hope that the audience will walk away having learned something that they did not know before viewing the videos. In our opinion, it would be unlikely that anyone could remember all the quote-worthy statements that Kari offered, yet there are wonderful messages traced throughout all four videos. Take the following categories for instance: marketing ploys, crystalline fructose, the jellybean rule, visual input, public organizations, food industries, company integrity, public ignorance, and responsibility. If our research impacts 1 person it will be well worth the effort!
PART 1
“People seem to ignore the reality of a product because of the marketing or because of, you know, how it looked.”
“How do you make someone buy something or get around you know, the bad parts of a product of make them less obvious, so people would buy them?”
“Vitaminwater is kind of marketed very obviously as something that is good for you.”
“It’s marketed as a health food drink. Their slogans include ‘vitamins plus water, all you need,’ or ‘vitamins plus water, it’s in your hand.”
“On the label on the back, you actually see that it [Vitaminwater] has a gargantuan amount of sugar and calories, almost the equivalent to a soda.”
“People claim that it [the sugar] led to the obesity problem in America.”
Jellybean Rule: “You can’t take something, a product, that is in essence unhealthy, and inject it with something that is not bad for you and then call it health food.”
“Everything you need to know is on the label.”
“Crystalline Fructose is about 98% Fructose and then its chemically compounded that last two percent with about a milligram of arsenic, some heavy metal compounds, lead and chloride.”
“It, this chemical [Crystalline Fructose], has actually been linked in a lot of studies to causing liver cirrhosis and liver failure.”
“Fructose must be metabolized in your liver. There’s no other cells in your body that can handle the chemical compounds that make it up.”
“People seem to ignore the reality of a product because of the marketing or because of, you know, how it looked.”
“How do you make someone buy something or get around you know, the bad parts of a product of make them less obvious, so people would buy them?”
“Vitaminwater is kind of marketed very obviously as something that is good for you.”
“It’s marketed as a health food drink. Their slogans include ‘vitamins plus water, all you need,’ or ‘vitamins plus water, it’s in your hand.”
“On the label on the back, you actually see that it [Vitaminwater] has a gargantuan amount of sugar and calories, almost the equivalent to a soda.”
“People claim that it [the sugar] led to the obesity problem in America.”
Jellybean Rule: “You can’t take something, a product, that is in essence unhealthy, and inject it with something that is not bad for you and then call it health food.”
“Everything you need to know is on the label.”
“Crystalline Fructose is about 98% Fructose and then its chemically compounded that last two percent with about a milligram of arsenic, some heavy metal compounds, lead and chloride.”
“It, this chemical [Crystalline Fructose], has actually been linked in a lot of studies to causing liver cirrhosis and liver failure.”
“Fructose must be metabolized in your liver. There’s no other cells in your body that can handle the chemical compounds that make it up.”
PART 2
“[CSPI’s] overall purpose is to inform the public of scientific and nutritional research that would benefit them and to advocate government agencies that do the same that follow that kind of model.”
L: “There was a discrepancy between are they working for the public or are they working to kind of grow their own name?”
K: “At the end of the day, just like the food industry, CSPI is an organization that needs funding, they need people to know about them in order to function.”
L: “Coke says, ‘No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking VitaminWater was a healthy beverage.’ Do they have any justification in saying that in your opinion?
K: “No, not at all. From a marketing perspective, VitaminWater as a product was brilliant, seriously, just brilliant. It’s a great marketing campaign. It did what it was supposed to do, everything from their name, to their slogans, to the design on the bottle , to the celebrities, who were mostly sports stars that they had doing commercials. ‘No person could be reasonably misled is a little false because the marketing team for Coca-Cola, or whoever developed the marketing campaign for VitaminWater their entire job was to reasonably mislead people into buying VitaminWater. Now whether, they set out with the intention of deceiving them nutritionally, I don’t know I wasn’t part of that marketing team…that was the point, the point was to make people buy it and they did that. So they succeeded on one hand, just ethically it was a little shady. You can’t really downplay the power of marketing. We know…that people make somewhere around 85% of their decisions based on visual imput.”
“Coca-Cola didn’t do anything in marketing that’s outside of the norm. They played to people’s visual interests. And the high stakes of belief that people put into marketing without even realizing it.”
“They marketed this beverage like it was something good for you, like it was something you could ingest and it would increase your physical prowess, so to speak. Statistically they succeeded, I mean VitaminWater in the last year has come to rival beverages like Gatorade, you know from a marketing perspective. VitaminWater was selling just as much if not more than Gatorade and it became their biggest competition.”
“Just their general visual imput if you look at the styling of their commercials and the styling of their bottles, they give off this very organic feel almost. If you were to take a bottle into say Whole Foods…the visual styling of the bottle and their graphics fits very well into what has become the organic food market everything from…the fonts that they use to the wording on the bottles. “
“If you look at VitaminWater as a product, everything that was associated with it, everything from the commercials, to like I said the style and design to the colors that they used, to the charity events that they supported were all health related. Everything that was associated with them was health related, except for that one inch by one inch square on the back that actually told you what was in it…It’s basically water and sugar and food coloring, and about a penny’s worth of water-soluble vitamins, which is not a lot, when you consider it’s a 20 oz. bottle you’re buying, and to make it even worse the bottles are actually a double serving.”
“[CSPI’s] overall purpose is to inform the public of scientific and nutritional research that would benefit them and to advocate government agencies that do the same that follow that kind of model.”
L: “There was a discrepancy between are they working for the public or are they working to kind of grow their own name?”
K: “At the end of the day, just like the food industry, CSPI is an organization that needs funding, they need people to know about them in order to function.”
L: “Coke says, ‘No consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking VitaminWater was a healthy beverage.’ Do they have any justification in saying that in your opinion?
K: “No, not at all. From a marketing perspective, VitaminWater as a product was brilliant, seriously, just brilliant. It’s a great marketing campaign. It did what it was supposed to do, everything from their name, to their slogans, to the design on the bottle , to the celebrities, who were mostly sports stars that they had doing commercials. ‘No person could be reasonably misled is a little false because the marketing team for Coca-Cola, or whoever developed the marketing campaign for VitaminWater their entire job was to reasonably mislead people into buying VitaminWater. Now whether, they set out with the intention of deceiving them nutritionally, I don’t know I wasn’t part of that marketing team…that was the point, the point was to make people buy it and they did that. So they succeeded on one hand, just ethically it was a little shady. You can’t really downplay the power of marketing. We know…that people make somewhere around 85% of their decisions based on visual imput.”
“Coca-Cola didn’t do anything in marketing that’s outside of the norm. They played to people’s visual interests. And the high stakes of belief that people put into marketing without even realizing it.”
“They marketed this beverage like it was something good for you, like it was something you could ingest and it would increase your physical prowess, so to speak. Statistically they succeeded, I mean VitaminWater in the last year has come to rival beverages like Gatorade, you know from a marketing perspective. VitaminWater was selling just as much if not more than Gatorade and it became their biggest competition.”
“Just their general visual imput if you look at the styling of their commercials and the styling of their bottles, they give off this very organic feel almost. If you were to take a bottle into say Whole Foods…the visual styling of the bottle and their graphics fits very well into what has become the organic food market everything from…the fonts that they use to the wording on the bottles. “
“If you look at VitaminWater as a product, everything that was associated with it, everything from the commercials, to like I said the style and design to the colors that they used, to the charity events that they supported were all health related. Everything that was associated with them was health related, except for that one inch by one inch square on the back that actually told you what was in it…It’s basically water and sugar and food coloring, and about a penny’s worth of water-soluble vitamins, which is not a lot, when you consider it’s a 20 oz. bottle you’re buying, and to make it even worse the bottles are actually a double serving.”
PART 3
“One of the points that CSPI has made in their lawsuit is that the amount of ‘nutritionally’ beneficial elements that are in VitaminWater are like multi-times outweighed by the amount of sugar and calories in the same drink.”
“[Coca-Cola is] making you associate that I am going to get X benefit if I drink this bottle of VitaminWater. And then, on a base level, you associate that with that color and they pretty much (pause) they were pretty right on as far as the colors they picked for the words that they used for each bottle along with the flavors. So, if you were to take a spread of VitaminWater, which is very interesting, you have like… [different colors and] ‘wake up’ words. [Coca-Cola] didn’t use any colors like (pause) all of their colors were kind muted a little bit. Like if you look at them, they weren’t neon because we associate neon colors on a subconscious level with things that aren’t real. So, we know from marketing from the food industry that unless it’s candy or something targeted for kids, we don’t use neon colors because on a subconscious level we think that that’s fake. So, they muted down all of their colors so that all of the colors that they use are these kind of like (pause) they are not all natural colors because they use like purple and orange and that kind of thing. But they took them down a few tones, so that they are all a little washed out. They still want you to associate the drink with water. So, because they want you to believe that a certain content of the drink is water and they don’t want you to think that it is unnatural, they use these muted colors in combination with the fact that they hook them with the colors with the words with the flavors.”
“In [Coke’s] defense, they are not the only organization in the food industry who [markets intentionally to be successful]. They just happen to be under fire right now.”
“I think that the food industry is able to make the statements that they make and do the things that they do, not unlike what Coke has done with VitaminWater, because the public has become complacent with being misinformed. So, I think it’s almost like a never-ending cycle of we allow organizations to have a lack of integrity because we are misinformed, and it just spirals.”
“This is a really good opportunity for the public to step forward and say, OK, what else (pause) A) How did a company think this was OK? B) How did we let this happen? C) What else in our lives or what other organizations are we misinformed about? And, which other ones are being a little less honest than they should?”
“One of the points that CSPI has made in their lawsuit is that the amount of ‘nutritionally’ beneficial elements that are in VitaminWater are like multi-times outweighed by the amount of sugar and calories in the same drink.”
“[Coca-Cola is] making you associate that I am going to get X benefit if I drink this bottle of VitaminWater. And then, on a base level, you associate that with that color and they pretty much (pause) they were pretty right on as far as the colors they picked for the words that they used for each bottle along with the flavors. So, if you were to take a spread of VitaminWater, which is very interesting, you have like… [different colors and] ‘wake up’ words. [Coca-Cola] didn’t use any colors like (pause) all of their colors were kind muted a little bit. Like if you look at them, they weren’t neon because we associate neon colors on a subconscious level with things that aren’t real. So, we know from marketing from the food industry that unless it’s candy or something targeted for kids, we don’t use neon colors because on a subconscious level we think that that’s fake. So, they muted down all of their colors so that all of the colors that they use are these kind of like (pause) they are not all natural colors because they use like purple and orange and that kind of thing. But they took them down a few tones, so that they are all a little washed out. They still want you to associate the drink with water. So, because they want you to believe that a certain content of the drink is water and they don’t want you to think that it is unnatural, they use these muted colors in combination with the fact that they hook them with the colors with the words with the flavors.”
“In [Coke’s] defense, they are not the only organization in the food industry who [markets intentionally to be successful]. They just happen to be under fire right now.”
“I think that the food industry is able to make the statements that they make and do the things that they do, not unlike what Coke has done with VitaminWater, because the public has become complacent with being misinformed. So, I think it’s almost like a never-ending cycle of we allow organizations to have a lack of integrity because we are misinformed, and it just spirals.”
“This is a really good opportunity for the public to step forward and say, OK, what else (pause) A) How did a company think this was OK? B) How did we let this happen? C) What else in our lives or what other organizations are we misinformed about? And, which other ones are being a little less honest than they should?”
PART 4
“There “There is a big part of me that hopes that the public would say Oh my gosh, we have being deceived. What else are we being deceived on? Let’s call the food industry to a higher level of standards.”
“I think we have become so accustomed as a society to (pause) especially when it comes to the food industry to taking in their marketing, verbatim and believing it. Also, we don’t like to be inconvenienced. That is why something like VitaminWater does so well because people think that they are getting some great health benefit just by drinking a bottle of water as opposed to the other arguably more difficult ways we can get vitamins. So, how difficult it would be to reroute our society in a direction that is more healthy, not that just appears more healthy but that is, would be so difficult and so profound, that there is a of me that believes that the public wouldn’t be willing to engage in that process.”
“So ultimately, in what I am understanding of what you have been saying throughout this entire interview is that it is not CSPI’s fault, it is not the public’s fault, or Coke’s fault solely. It is kind of how they interplay and they all need to take responsibility for their own part while recognizing the errors of the other players.” is a big part of me that hopes that the public would say Oh my gosh, we have being deceived. What else are we being deceived on? Let’s call the food industry to a higher level of standards.”
“I think we have become so accustomed as a society to (pause) especially when it comes to the food industry to taking in their marketing, verbatim and believing it. Also, we don’t like to be inconvenienced. That is why something like VitaminWater does so well because people think that they are getting some great health benefit just by drinking a bottle of water as opposed to the other arguably more difficult ways we can get vitamins. So, how difficult it would be to reroute our society in a direction that is more healthy, not that just appears more healthy but that is, would be so difficult and so profound, that there is a of me that believes that the public wouldn’t be willing to engage in that process.”
“So ultimately, in what I am understanding of what you have been saying throughout this entire interview is that it is not CSPI’s fault, it is not the public’s fault, or Coke’s fault solely. It is kind of how they interplay and they all need to take responsibility for their own part while recognizing the errors of the other players.”
“There “There is a big part of me that hopes that the public would say Oh my gosh, we have being deceived. What else are we being deceived on? Let’s call the food industry to a higher level of standards.”
“I think we have become so accustomed as a society to (pause) especially when it comes to the food industry to taking in their marketing, verbatim and believing it. Also, we don’t like to be inconvenienced. That is why something like VitaminWater does so well because people think that they are getting some great health benefit just by drinking a bottle of water as opposed to the other arguably more difficult ways we can get vitamins. So, how difficult it would be to reroute our society in a direction that is more healthy, not that just appears more healthy but that is, would be so difficult and so profound, that there is a of me that believes that the public wouldn’t be willing to engage in that process.”
“So ultimately, in what I am understanding of what you have been saying throughout this entire interview is that it is not CSPI’s fault, it is not the public’s fault, or Coke’s fault solely. It is kind of how they interplay and they all need to take responsibility for their own part while recognizing the errors of the other players.” is a big part of me that hopes that the public would say Oh my gosh, we have being deceived. What else are we being deceived on? Let’s call the food industry to a higher level of standards.”
“I think we have become so accustomed as a society to (pause) especially when it comes to the food industry to taking in their marketing, verbatim and believing it. Also, we don’t like to be inconvenienced. That is why something like VitaminWater does so well because people think that they are getting some great health benefit just by drinking a bottle of water as opposed to the other arguably more difficult ways we can get vitamins. So, how difficult it would be to reroute our society in a direction that is more healthy, not that just appears more healthy but that is, would be so difficult and so profound, that there is a of me that believes that the public wouldn’t be willing to engage in that process.”
“So ultimately, in what I am understanding of what you have been saying throughout this entire interview is that it is not CSPI’s fault, it is not the public’s fault, or Coke’s fault solely. It is kind of how they interplay and they all need to take responsibility for their own part while recognizing the errors of the other players.”
Afterward
Lindsey and I had the opportunity to sit down with Kari Reed and learn about her affiliation with Vitaminwater. She is knowledgeable in Graphic Design as well as the health food industry. Kari was able to provide important information about an assortment of topics including: the advertising perspective of Vitaminwater, the use of Crystalline Fructose in Vitaminwater: what it is, how it is used, etc, the presence of other chemicas included in the beverage, the colors associated with Vitaminwater and whether consumers purchase products based on color, the role of Coca-Cola and CSPI in the lawsuit, and the reality of the health facts on the back label. It was a great experience to sit down and learn about Vitaminwater with the assistance of Kari Reed's expertise.
