Ingredients: a moral dilemma?

It’s a weird time in product advertising. Corporations are trying to reinvent products for a new kind of consumer — the one looking for “natural” goods. Natural is to right now what eco-friendly was to the marketplace over the past decade. And since “natural” is currently undefined, it’s interesting to see how marketers are hoping to frame the discussion.

For the moment, it seems to be through championing the virtue of ingredients. Whereas previously eggs and sugar were just part of a label, they’re now being given front-and-center treatment. McDonald’s introduced “See What We’re Made Of” in 2008; it turns breakfast into egg, cheese and sausage components, and a burger into the sum of vegetables and meat. Pillsbury recently introduced its Simply … Cookies line — which shows the ingredients directly below the cookies on the front of the package. Haagen-Dazs now has seven flavors in its Five line of ice creams that contain only five ingredients. 

We’re also talking about the freshness or the local suppliers of specific ingredients. And that makes it easy to forget that we’re eating cookies or double cheeseburgers for lunch.