Ocean Spray "Top Bog" in the world of Cranberries

Ocean spray’s “Straight from the Bog” campaign was and is extremely successful, resulting in double digit sales increases, and making Ocean Spray “Top Bog” of the cranberry world.

I chose this commercial for Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice, by Arnold Worldwide, to discuss vertical, horizontal, and tertiary texts, because there are so many to be made.

The second I was given the task of embedding a video, I immediately thought of the Ocean Spray commercials, because they take place in a BOG, and that is of course the name of the blog you are visiting right now. It is interesting how naturally we make textual connections, when I chose the ad, I hardly realized, that the connection was made using vertical texts. The commercial also makes vertical connections between the benefits of drinking cranberry juice to your immune system, and dodge ball. I also made connections between other Ocean Spray commercials, which focus on the beauty of the cranberry bog, and the home grown aspects of Ocean Spray. Although these were not explicitly discussed in this ad, I was still aware of them because I was reading this ad based on experience I had with other previous ads. The company takes advantage of these horizontal connections made, and is even taking greater steps to increase knowledge and awareness of Ocean Spray cranberries with other projects, such as the cranberry bog installation in Rockefeller Center, with real cranberry farmers answering peoples questions.

Photo: Sarah Lohman

The most important aspect of this ad, and the campaign, is that the ads are FUNNY. I would not even remember the ad unless I thought it was funny. Although I like to think of myself and independent and impervious other peoples opinion, I undoubtedly read many tertiary texts with regard to this ad. If my friends didn't like the ad I assume I would soon find flaws with it also. Furthermore, after reading articles about how "Ocean Sprays Straight from the Bog Campaign Rank in Top Ten Percent of All Ads Ever Tested" I view the ad more highly, and in the contexts of advertisers and professional advertising publications rather than simply a funny commercial. It is mind BOGgling thinking about how many different connections or texts we use for anyone object. I just went over the most obviouse connections but it seems one could endlessly make connections however abstract between object and texts, in many ways, this is due to the fact that the human mind is essetntially an endlesss array of connections.

For example, if you took every mind map ever created in the creative class I am taking right now, and tried to make a connection between them, you could create one cohhesive giant mind map. If it werent for the color, from a distance I bet it would look like this image of nerves in the human brain.