You might not understand this fully as you do not have the privilege of seeing the ad for visual help, but I worked hard on this essay and I wanted to share.
A Transient Truth
Green is in, green is in the black, green is making green; the baby boomer-hugging hippies have long been in charge of the US corporate conglomerates and are now reverting back to old habits by squeezing the money out of their old cronies, the trees. From laundry detergent to candles companies are placing the miniature leaf on their products to be part of the growing trend of goods going green or “environmentally friendly,” for the esoteric crowd. Bottled water is no different from the rest, more prominently the often paparazzi photographed bystander, FIJI Water. FIJI Water is a high classed, full flavored mineral water bottled in the Fiji Islands and shipped all over the world. FIJI Water has also been widely criticized for the cost of manufacturing a single bottle of their product; it seems this has much to do with their dedication to their “FIJI Green” campaign.
The visual of the advertisement is dominated by the sharp image of a half orb-Earth taking up one-third of the page, white clouds tangoing with cerulean seas. The reader’s eyes are then drawn to a three word sentence: A convenient truth, this sentence is the epitome of a double entendre, though many might not catch it. All the writing on the page is set in the tone of a young educated person yet in an informal/casual syntax, keeping the reader comfortable when faced with a potentially arduous subject matter. The reader then moves to a moderately sized paragraph describing FIJI Water’s efforts to keep their manufacturing of plastic bottles as well as their partnership in environmental protect-conserva-preserva-reforesta-tion. The last sentence is a fleeting, punchy phrase that sums up what FIJI Water wants their consumers to believe, simply stated: “Sip with a clear conscience”.
With this advertisement, FIJI water has aimed at the trendy environmentally friendly movement with wit and droll. Culturally the phrase “A convenient truth.” harks to a widely seen and immensely popular environmentally topic based documentary hosted by former Vice President Al Gore. The name of this documentary was An Inconvenient Truth. The film’s main subject is global warming and its effects on the environment as well as the average human’s place in slowing these maladies. With a clever and reasonably furtive allusion this films title (without actually printing the exact words) FIJI Water accomplishes their premise and more with three words in the median of the page than with the 71 congested at the bottom.
Historically, global warming has been a long time coming, whether one believes it has to do with our place on this planet or not is their of their own doctrine; regardless it is globally accepted as proper to keep one’s home (mama Earth) tidy. Plastic bottled water is precoital in the age of pollution and though it is sensible to jump on the bandwagon of a moral cause, it is hardly underhanded.
In all practicality jumping on the bandwagon of environmental preservation is one of the better bandwagons to ever be jumpable, but in the public-eye sincere care for a cause is something that comes original to the subject’s nativity. By no means is that to denigrate FIJI’s or any other company’s righteous cause but merely a subjective accompaniment for the next glance at a “green” advertisement.
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