Newspeak in Consumer Society - SUNNY DELIGHT!

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I chose ‘Sunny Delight’ as an Orwellian example in modern society because I thought that it demonstrated where the fictional language newspeak, in ‘1984’ is most used… Consumerism.
The company responsible for Sunny Delight promoted it as being healthy and something that kids would pick over fizzy junk drinks like coca cola and cherryade despite the fact it was actually good for them. Sunny Delight was marketed on the basis that it was an orange juice. Technically this was right, but by neglecting to mention it was largely made of water and corn syrup and only 2% juice and had additives in it such as Beta Carotene (used for the orange colour) consumers were manipulated both visually and psychologically into believing that the drink was in fact a type of orange juice.
So mum’s all over the UK rushed out to buy a drink that their children finally enjoyed that was healthier than the ‘yummy’ soft drinks like coca cola, this was because they were manipulated by the use of language and the removal of certain facts which lead them to believe they simply had to go out and buy the drink.
The marketing hype lead the food commission to launch an investigation into the drink. The BBC later released a report saying that the food commission agency had actually found it to be “roughly equivalent to a Coca Cola-type product.” Their expensive marketing campaign which had been extremely successful finally crashed when it emerged that a little girl had actually turned orange as a result of drinking too much, largely because of the beta carotene.
Sunny delight had to be redesigned and re-launched as ‘SunnyD’ which contains 70% juice and NO added sugar or additives.
Overall, the company behind sunny delight decided to omit certain facts from their advertisements and made the drink to be something it wasn’t. To think otherwise would have been completely ridiculous. Simply by marketing it on being orange juice it became “the healthy alternative” thus making mums rush out and buy it for their children.
I think that this applies a lot to our consumer society. So many adverts omit certain facts about their products in an attempt to manipulate the audience into buying/behaving in a certain way. Their control of language allows them to manipulate people into thinking a certain way, for instance, for men, if you buy lynx you will instantly become attractive to hot women.
So next time you watch an advert, just remember, who know what they’re trying to make you do!


P.S – Hope you like our mock advert. We did this to show just how manipulative advertisements can be!!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSK0RJFxJNQ