Dasani Water Bottle Ad Analysis

Ryan Rogers, Allie Scheu & Catherine Traut

Dasani is a popular and well-known brand of water bottles and you can pretty much guarantee that you will see at least one person carrying around the glacier blue bottle each day.  Their advertising campaign is focused around their portability and the benefits their water will bring to the consumer over all other brands. In our first advertisement, there is a woman and a man dancing with iPod headphones in, then a large Dasani water bottle in the center. The bottom of the advertisement reads, “The Simple Moments are the most refreshing”. That statement is ironic because in reality, it is not really that simple to use plastic water bottles. Plastic water bottles are in fact a huge problem to dispose of unfortunately an advertisement will never say that though it is the truth. This advertisement states the opposite; it conveys the message that using Dasani water bottles are effortless to use, simple and above all, fun.

The second, more recent advertisement is all about the environment and the design of the new Dasani “plantbottle”. The add attempts to make people think the bottle is better for the environment, but when you think about it, one could ask about the other 70% that is still made of plastic which inevitably that take forever to decompose. As time goes on people become more environmentally aware and companies will continue to make their products seem increasingly environmentally friendly. The best answer to this problem is to get a reusable water bottle, but of course Dasani is never going to admit that.

Dasani began their water campaign targeting a consumer whose main goal is to buy clean and fresh water, as shown in the first advertisement. Their identity is centered on the fact that humans are looking to be refreshed and therefore in the ad they are experiencing a “simple” moment that refreshes them. Humans are portrayed somewhat vulnerably here because the water bottle is the same size as the humans, making a water bottle seem larger than life and above humankind. Our identity seems to be under the power of the water bottle and clearly the water bottle makes the consumer extremely happy as you can tell from the ad. Little do these innocent humans know that the process to dispose of the water bottle and recycle it is anything but “simple” even though that is what they are lead to believe by the ad.

            In the more recent Dasani ad, the identity of the consumer has changed greatly. The goal of this advertisement is to convey the message about how buying this certain water bottle is eco-friendly and that the consumer of the bottle will be saving a little bit of the environment. This is very appealing to the consumer, because they want to feel good about what they buy and the industry today is very concerned about making it easier for consumers to be eco-friendly. We are more aware of the complicated process this water bottle must go through to be hopefully recycled. With this ad it is assumed that the identity of the consumer is someone who is looking to help save the environment. The consumer in past years definitely did not focus on the environment as much as the consumer in the modern era.

           

To persuade this consumer-based audience, Dasani uses the image of happy people dancing. People want to be happy and they want to have fun and that is why Dasani is leading them to believe that they will look like this if they simply just drink Dasani water. There is a large Dasani water bottle in addition to the two people, and underneath the bottle it says, “The simple moments that are most refreshing”. Dasani wants people to think that if they buy their water, you will have many enjoyable yet simple moments that you can cherish. The main tactic of persuasion in this ad is that of “sappiness” and is somewhat ridiculous because everyone knows happiness cannot be found in a water bottle.

The second ad, as stated before, is clearly using the draw of being environmentally friendly. It is subconsciously trying to make the consumer feel guilty if they don’t buy a product that is good for the environment. The advertisement itself is very clean and simple, making you feel like that’s how the water is going to taste. It uses bright colors and mostly green to enhance the theme of environmentally friendly products. The green cap of the Dasani water bottle is also a symbol of Dasani’s effort to be more ecofriendly. Culture today is greatly centered around greenness because it is now becoming widely recognized that it is indeed possible to make a difference in saving our environment. Dasani knows this, so they put that leafy green feel and quality into their product to draw in the people of today.

“And no, those new biodegradable plastic bottles and bags intended to save the day so far haven’t saved much of anything. Turns out manufacturers failed to check whether their lab-tested degradability is compatible with the real-world network of local composters and recyclers across the nation. Mostly, they’re not” (Humes, Garbology 4-5).  This quote almost, but not quite, puts the second Dasani advertisement to shame because essentially it is saying that even though they are being marketed as environmentally friendly, they really are not. It is difficult to know for sure whether or not these products are in fact good for the environment. Nowhere in the ad does it state that these bottles are 100% biodegradable or if the fact that they are 30% plant substance is going to increase their ability to decompose in a landfill. So a question remains Dasani, are you really environmentally friendly or not?