New York City, who has been debating instituting a soda tax, has instead settled on running a shock ad campaign. Observe:
In theory, this seems like a good idea - though in general kids are rebellious and ad campaigns aimed at getting them to not do something aren’t always successful. For example, this study suggests that anti-smoking campaigns are successful when they encourage kids to believe that their friends are taking the ads to heart, while more direct messages fail.
It’s interesting to note that when the government fights against sugar, it’s fighting against artificially low prices that it’s own corn subsidies helped to create. The drinks they fight against are almost exclusively sweetened with various forms of corn syrup. Not only is it spending money to create the problem, it’s now spending money on trying to solve it.
Instead of a tax, why not just kill the corn subsidies (both will have the same effect: raise the cost of soda and generate revenue for the government)?
Google Trends shows us that, from its low point midweek, the number of people googling “soda” increases roughly 20% on Sunday. Why would that happen, any guesses?
This campaign will be a good thing if it actually works - hopefully they’ll play up the indrect social component as mentioned above. For more, check out the NYTimes article that inspired this post.
You have to appreciate how gruesome the fat in the glass is though.
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super interesting and confusing - especially the mixed signals from the city vs federal government. - absolutely love the fat pouring into the glass, yummmm!
I keep seeing ads here in Michigan defending corn syrup. It’s always two people and one is like “there’s corn syrup in that!” And the other person goes “So? It has just as many calories as sugar and is okay in moderation” and then the first person never had anything to say. But they don’t talk about the subsidies, the money, the political aspect.