You’ve probably noticed that food packages often display a green or red dot prominently to give the consumer an idea of the nature of the ingredients it contains. This is because the Food Safety Standard Act 2006 has made it compulsory for manufacturers to use a green dot for vegetarian and red dot for non-vegetarian items.
But this company’s marketing campaign has decided to use it for drinking water because their purifier ensures that it is “pure vegetarian”!
If reading that made you do a double take, there’s more. The company explains why normal water is non-vegetarian by saying,
“Boiling will kill germs but the killed germs are still in the water, not making it vegetarian water. Prestige LifeStraw uses Ultra filtration with hollow fibre technology that physically REMOVES all virus, bacteria and Cysts, leaving only pure water with NO germs, dead or alive in it.”
When netizens came across the said advertisement in a newspaper, they were flabbergasted. It is common knowledge that marketers spin tales to entice customers but surely this is taking things too far, right?
Here is how desi Twitter reacted and expressed their shock at the concept of 100% vegetarian water.
Water is non-vegetarian. India is irreparable. pic.twitter.com/u6jK3B6yNc
— Baba (@BabaGlocal) June 20, 2019
Imagine vegetarian water enthusiasts realising how much dead skin and how many living spiders they eat in a year. pic.twitter.com/MPJTLObsKv
— albert chomu (@BucketheadCase) June 21, 2019
Even ‘pure vegetarians’ are like “Yeh thoda jyada nahi ho gaya? 🧐”
— Ankur Jain (@ankur__jain) June 21, 2019
How about some vegetarian air to go with it?
— Perpetual_Saapadu_Ramen (@mangalamsaar) June 20, 2019
What was the copywriter smoking ? 😳🤨
— crankyfries (@thenotsogrumpy) June 20, 2019
https://twitter.com/sumit_roy_/status/1141733003917266945
Well,you are still going to get the "paap" of killing those microorganisms no matter where the body goes.🤷🏽♂️
— Shubham शुभम (@shubhamcl10) June 20, 2019
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
— Abhi Jain (@abhijain298) June 20, 2019
Even vegetables aren't vegetarian by this ad's logic.
— Ranjabali Chaudhuri (@Ranjabali) June 21, 2019
Prestige lost its "Prestige" with this gimmick advert. So every Tuesday i was having a non-veg latte? Aaila!!!
— Sandy Buddy (@Sanddybuddy) June 21, 2019
Differentiating one’s product in the market is one thing but this particular strategy has everyone exclaiming – WTF?