Ben & Jerry's Advertising

Crack Open the Truth About Labeling

Picture the idyllic countryside. Big red barn, grassy plains, chickens roaming. That is the picture perfect image of where our eggs should come from. The chicken’s natural habitat is of course, the healthiest place for them to live right? However, the chickens, and ultimately the eggs well-being is mercilessly discarded when multi conglomerate companies are involved. Money hungry, billion dollar industries do not have time to foster chickens and nurture them in the right type of environment, they only consider quick turn around, money making deals. These gigantic companies do not want their consumers to know about the behind-the-scenes practices that occur on their “farms”, and to prevent the consumer from

It depicts a barn, grassy fields, and rolling plains of wheat within the ice cream container. This gives the conscientious consumer fake reassurance of fair hen treatment. The advertisement also shows the hens flapping away complete with aviation goggles, seemingly free and adventurous. The unknowing consumer would take this as a valuable aspect of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Ultimately, the Ben & Jerry’s ad is trying to manipulate the customer, tricking them into thinking that because their ice cream is completely open, they do not have anything to hide. This ploy is used throughout all types of food advertising and has become a billion dollar industry. Knowing this, the invisibility of the incorrect egg labeling industry is hidden from consumers in an attempt for companies to market their products in the best way

Many of these labels mean absolutely nothing, and some actually mean the opposite of what they imply. For instance, often times consumers see “farm fresh” eggs, but according to Paul Shapiro, the vice president of the Humane Society of the United States and a leading expert on commercial egg production, “it literally means nothing” (Kelto). Farm fresh is a ruse to make the consumer visualize a farm where these eggs they are about to purchase and consume supposedly came from. Another term that means absolutely nothing it “all-natural”. Just like with farm fresh, all-natural is used to supplicate an image of a farm. “Vegetarian diet” is also used frequently. Consumers automatically have a positive connotation to the word vegetarian, but chickens are naturally omnivores. So, yes, the chickens who laid these eggs were given a vegetarian diet, but chickens would normally eat both grains and insects in a natural state. The vegetation diet means that these chickens were most likely fed corn or soybean to speed up egg production, something they would not ordinarily eat in nature (Kelto). Because of the sped up egg production, these laying hens have a much shorter life span due to calcium deficiency, making their bones unable to support their weight and they simply collapse from exhaustion, which leads into all the health dangers