Nutrition

Nourishing the Body Whole Providing a healthy product for people is a necessary goal for food and drink suppliers. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently stated in an online article that “American society has become 'obesogenic', characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, [unhealthy] foods, and physical inactivity. Policy and environmental change initiatives that make healthy choices in nutrition and physical activity available, affordable, and easy will likely prove most effective in combating obesity”. With that in mind, I cannot help admire those suppliers who are creating products that America wants to buy using ethical advertising and all around honest business skills.         One company that seems to incorporate all of those qualities is Odwalla. Odwalla is juice company that has for twenty-five years lived by three key principles: Make great juice, Do good things for the community, and Build a business with heart. Their mission is to “nourish people everywhere, respect our planet, protect the soil with sustainable practices, and create products good for the soul”, and because of the way their products look and taste, they are not having any trouble doing just that. The target audience of Odwalla is most likely people who enjoy a healthy and delicious beverage. Although America has a reputation of being overweight and awfully unhealthy, nowadays the organic movement is having a huge impact on buyers. Therefore, I respect Odwalla for taking advantage of this and creating a healthy choice for Americans while remaining true to their mission statement. In regards to one particular Odwalla product called a Mango Tango All Natural Smoothie, the company uses examples of ethos, pathos, and logos right on the bottle in attempts to persuade buyers. On one side of the packaging, it reads “Open the bottle, then close your eyes and let your other senses take over. Inhale the exotic scent of tropical fruits. Taste a silky swirl of fragrant mangos, ripe bananas and creamy coconut blended to smooth perfection. Sip slowly, and enjoy the rich and juicy passion of Mango Tango. So sweet...so cool…so…Ahhh”. Next to that, there are pictures of a palm tree, colorful fruit, and what looks like a pelican in a Hawaiian shirt and hat. This is a large example of pathos and in their attempt to trigger emotion; I feel that they definitely succeed. When a person reads that, they’re most likely going to want to buy it, because they want to experience that relaxing feeling that is described in such a sultry manner on the bottle and the cartoon pelican could easily be attractive to children, which broadens their audience even more. Moreover, Odwalla also uses ethos as a persuasive method by making themselves seem very caring, honest, and responsible. For example, on the official Odwalla website; under a section called “Who We Are”, it reads “Our mission is to nourish people everywhere and adhere to our guiding principle of respect: respect for our consumers who rely on us for great-tasting, nourishing beverages and bars and respect for the earth on which we rely for holistic nourishment. Odwalla just wouldn’t be Odwalla without taking care of Mother Earth and giving back to the communities that have given us so much”. This statement would easily make any person feel as if they were buying products from essentially good and honest people; therefore, giving them a feeling of ethically justification in their choice to buy an Odwalla product. As far as logos goes, it is used by the juice company to make this particular product look like the best choice in healthy beverages by providing legitimate facts about product right on the bottle. For example, the nutrition facts are not only stated in the way that all food/drink products are, but they go even further with it by restating some of the nutrition facts on more than one side of the packaging. They succeed in making this Odwalla Natural Smoothie sound like not only a tasty and ethical choice, but also a smart choice by listing the fruit that it contains, the vitamins that it is an excellent source of, and that there is one whole mango in each bottle. It also does not contain GMO and in fine print it states that “Today many ingredients do not yet exist in bioengineered varieties. Nevertheless, Odwalla is committed to only using ingredients that are not produced using biotechnology”, which makes this Mango Tango Fruit Smoothie Blend seem like an excellent choice in beverage. I think that Odwalla has a strong argument as to why you should buy their products, and they succeed in their attempt to persuade their audience to do so. They use many ethos, pathos, and logos in countless forms on anything with the name Odwalla connected to it and I think that makes their argument strong and successfully persuasive. As I said before, Americans do have a bad reputation of being overweight and habitually making unhealthy choices in regards to their choices in food and drink. However, in spite of this, I think that companies like Odwalla are doing well on their mission to nourish people by giving them a healthy alternative in food and drink choices and essentially showing them a smart and rewarding way to live.