O.J. might kill you, and I'm not talking about the football player

 Alissa Hamilton interviewed on CBC.

 Maybe we should just stay away from anything and anyone named O.J.

Alissa Hamilton, interviewed here on CBC, recently published a book called "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice," and it looks like a juicy read; it could do for the orange juice industry what Eric Schlosser did for the meat industry with Fast Food Nation, which is: gross you out by exposing its dirty secrets.

Hamilton says the term "not from concentrate" is an advertising and PR success story, because in people's minds, it implies that the juice is fresh and better than other juices. In fact it's just the opposite.

Orange juice needs to be available all year long, even when no one is growing oranges. To increase its shelf-life, you need some rancid chemical goop, which is undrinkable until it's mixed with stuff that includes the sweet, sweet smell of "orange." Voila! We gulp the stuff down by the gallon, under the illusion that we're guzzling fresh, tasty, and healthy orange juice from Florida. Even that's not true: it's actually Brazil that grows them.

Say it ain't so, Bing.

Urban NDN and a PR icon for the ages

A

The original Rosie.

"Big, bold, and proud!"

The latest issue of Urban NDN gets all Rosie the Riveter on us with anti-poverty activist Candace Sutherland playing the role of the World War II icon on the cover.

Open publication - Free publishing - More metis

(The journal is published by CreComm grad Colleen Simard, and features articles by CreComm grads Kristy Rydz and RoseAnna Schick.)

I recently posted about some of the classic government propaganda posters, and asked whether the time is right to bring them back, particularly the ones that sell us "sacrifice" like "When you ride alone, you ride with Hitler!" OK, maybe not that one specifically, but that kind of one.

Blogger and CreComm grad Wade Argo responded:

"I don't think you'll see that kind of propaganda again in the western world. Those posters existed in a very different time, with a unifying theme that ran through them. It's unlikely that you would find that same unity anymore as every nation and political party operates their own agenda, and are unwilling to relent to others."

Woman's got the power 

It's interesting that while many of these posters have vanished from public consciousness, Rosie's got staying power.

As any PR worth his or her salt knows, you need a good, strong symbol to persuade your public. Rosie excelled at that as the poster girl for the U.S. government's World War II campaign to sell the importance of the war effort and the idea that women could work part-time in factories to help.

It worked. According to the Encyclopedia of American Economic History, "the "Rosie the Riveter" movement increased the number of working American women to 20 million by 1944, a 57 per cent increase from 1940."

So successful was the poster (and the aptly named "Rosie Movement") that its initial meaning - work for your country! - became an iconic symbol of feminism: strength, patriotism, esteem, camaraderie, economic power, and a can-do attitude, which it still is today.

Which is why we see shout-outs to Rosie in posters:

Action figures:

Videogames (meet "Rosie," the genetically enhanced, rivet-gun-toting humanoids of BioShock):

And Halloween hairstyles (for full enjoyment, fast forward to the last frame):



You've come a long way, baby.