Vitamins and water. It seems like a healthy combination; however the truth about water always lies beneath the surface. Vitamin water is a recent phenomenon that combines a different variety of vitamins and flavours into a fashionably packaged bottle. An example of one of the brand’s flavours advertised in the December issue of Glamour magazine is Focus. Focus is flavoured with kiwi and strawberry and chalk full of your daily vitamin needs. Its description claims to help you notice “birds chirping and flowers blooming.” |Though it seems that the hot pink packaging is perhaps aimed more at getting you to notice it than the wonders of Mother Earth.
In understanding this product it is important to look at where and when it was advertised; Glamour magazine in December. Glamour is a women’s magazine whose target audience is aged 18-49. This then is assumed to be the target audience of this specific Vitamin Water ad. This age range of women would be inclined to make “healthy choices” and be fit as Western society, including Glamour magazine, tells them this is necessary to be considered beautiful. This leads to the importance of the timing of the ad, December. December is a month of decadence with it being the holiday season for many people. Countless diets go off the rocker at this time of year. However January is just a few short weeks away bringing a new year of fitness resolutions. It is implied in the ad that Vitamin Water is healthy and makes you fit, so if you drink it during the holiday season, you will be one step ahead of everyone else pounding down the gym door on the 2nd of January.
The packaging of the product itself is aimed at a very niche group. Each flavour having its own comical description on the side and bold signature colour. This flavour in particular describes itself as:
“ now that everyone is glued to their mobile phones, no one really plays attention
to what is going...