Analysis: The ABA, The American Beverage Association

Managing what you eat and balancing your diet is a very popular and serious matter that has spread itself across the country and has become the subject to many reforms in the food industry. In order to protect themselves, many food companies have joined arms to make a good name for themselves in an era where unhealthy food distributors are at fault. An example of this is the ABA, The American Beverage Association, and as you can expect they represent the 3 biggest drink distributors in the United States, The Coca-Cola Company, The Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and Pepsico. The general public usually blames the soft-drink industry for the growing issues of overweight and diabetes in the United states, something that is bad for business. As a result

They use this to scare consumers into thinking that the ABA can help them balance and eat better which fuels the health-craze that has spread itself across the country and what has caused many food industries to reform just like the drink industry wants you to believe in this advertisement. Another need they use throughout the ad is the need to satisfy curiosity, something that is very important to them because of the seriousness of the claims they make in the video. They use percents and simple charts to feed this hunger and for the most part they do this very effectively. Other than using a few basic needs in the advertisement, the ABA effectively throws in many persuasion methods to better convince the consumer watching. Right from the start the ad uses the plain folk persuasion technique by talking about normal decisions most of us make on a normal basis. That allows them to better connect with the ad’s audience and can better promote their campaign. Other than the plain folk persuasion technique, the ad also takes advantage of other techniques like freedom. They use this by continually repeating throughout the ad that “We have choices.” Not only does this relate to their target message that it's not their “fault” if you don't eat healthy, but it also connects to

But what you don't know is that it was only done to block legislation that was in the process of being passed to have sugar count in teaspoons labeled instead. Why they would choose calories over sugar? Simple, pop has less calories than sugar. “The calories per bottle is not shocking,” said Christina Roberto, an assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s the amount of sugar.” A 16-ounce Coke has three quarters of the calories of a single-pack Twix bar but more than twice the sugar. Surprisingly that is not the only thing that the ABA is hiding from us. When they mention removing calorie-filled drinks from schools that is also another attempt to get out of sticky legislation that could affect their sales. Stung by harsh publicity about fat kids and threatened with lawsuits, the nation’s three largest beverage companies finally got some resolve when they voluntarily agreed to remove sugary drinks from schools. But the problem is, voluntarily is a strong word to use. The truth is that full-calorie soda would have been forced out of schools eventually, either by litigation or legislation. And the beverage companies were lucky to get sports drinks in the deal since many nutritionists believe there is