April 8, 2004

I'm offended by my juice bottle. I was annoyed when the mango juice sold in the Law School snack bar changed its name from Fantasia (no connection to American Idol) to Naked. When I'm consuming liquid, I don't want to contemplate nakedness. That's just wrong: why are you making me think of bodily fluids? For a year, I refused to buy the drink I had been buying for years. Today, I bought one, and I have a number of additional complaints about the packaging.

1. The full name of the juice is "Naked Superfood Food-Juice/Mighty Mango-go." That's too heavy on the assertion that the drink is also a food (big news) and too un-clever in the idea of jazzing up mango by repeating the "go." "Food food" "go go"--and naked! I'm sorry, I don't even want a drink that exciting.

2. Under the ridiculous name it says, "It's an anti-ox mango-fruit-tango!" First of all, I don't need ox repellent. There are no oxen in these parts. Second, it's not clever enough to combine mango and tango especially since you didn't resist mango and go one line up on your packaging. It's like you brainstormed about "mango," then just used all your ideas. (Hey, how about "Man, go!"). Third, mango is also a fruit, so technically, you should say "It's an anti-ox mango-nonmango fruit-tango!"

3. Then it says "Get Naked! 'cause Life is Sweet Enough!" That's not even positive. You're saying your juice is sour? You're going to make my life worse, apparently, and you're also injecting sex into the subject of some juice you want me to drink. That's not good!

4. On the side, it directs me to "SHAKE & CHUG." Okay, fine to tell me to shake it. It needs shaking. But telling me the attitude I'm supposed to adopt while drinking and dictating a speed? That's an irritating intrusion into my lunchtime demeanor.

5. Elsewhere, it says: "With extra A & C, plus Vitamin E and Selenium, every velvety-smooth mouthful of this tropical treat helps you fight free radicals without swinging a punch." Now, you're mixing incomprehensible science, sexual innuendo, and weird political humor. That's just a mess!

It doesn't seem to taste as good as when they called it Fantasia and the packaging had a mild psychedelic theme. I guess they thought they needed to update it. (Or did Disney threaten to sue them?) Maybe they decided they needed to get men to buy it. I really can't understand, but it seems as though they just had a big jumble of motivations and really just didn't think about anything clearly.

UPDATE--CHRIS OFFERS A CORRECTION: "Fantasia did not change its name to Naked. They are two completely different companies. Naked put Fantasia out of business by making deals with all the stores to sell their product and not sell Fantasia." Yeah, the people who sell it kept asserting it was the same thing, but it really doesn't seem to be. So I guess Naked tasting worse wasn't all my subjective reaction to offensive packaging. I won't keep buying it.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A reader credits Naked with trying for a Dr. Bronner's Soap kind of effect. That old too-much-on-the-label approach to cleverness is very much a late 60s/early 70s sort of ethos, which I find hard to see in Naked, because it replaced my beloved Fantasia, which was had a tastefully psychedelic label. That Dr. Bronner's Soap sort of humor was adopted by Madison Avenue when products got names like Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter. Now if Naked had called itself Why The Hell Isn't This Fantasia, I would have found it amusing.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

you're an idiot, just drink the damn juice and forget about the fucking name !!!!!!!