A couple of years ago I remember there being this big fuss because apparently, despite extravagant marketing to the contrary, that Vitamin Water was not actually healthier than soda. Since both are bottled and marketed by the Coca Cola Company, this wasn’t all together surprising. The consensus, once the facts came out, was that the Coca Cola Company tried to boost its sagging soda sales by introducing a similar product cleverly labeled as a healthier alternative. The public outcry following the debunking of the Vitamin Water myth was somewhat significant, and it makes one wonder how the public could be so misled in the first place.

image courtesy glimpsesads.com

A little digging got me to a business article in The Atlantic that showed how advertisements try to leave long-lasting “impressions.” This makes sense, and explains to a degree how Vitamin Water became so huge for a short time. Americans, influenced by the new health-consciousness that has been sweeping the nation for the last half-decade or so, was willing to buy into a flavored drink with major health benefits. Something that taste
d “better” than regular old water and could boost your health seemed like a win-win, and the public bought in. In hindsight, the ad campaign run by Coke was an absolute masterstroke, one on par with or greater than their recent “Share a Coke with…” campaign that caused sales to once again increase. With such obvious benefits, the public didn’t bother to look into the “fine print”, so to speak, that is in the form of the Nutrition Facts on the side of each bottle. Ingenious advertising such as that is part of the reason why it remains a 70 billion dollar industry, according The Atlantic.