Getting it all wrong

The fast-paced adidas shoe commercial released in January 2016 opens with a dismal, dystopian, post-apocalyptic scene complete with burning cars, a stray dog, a semi-destroyed forest and people walking through it all. It continues on to show a wide array of examples of popular culture that are criticized in the media as being bad or “conformist,” such as taking photos using selfie sticks, undergoing plastic surgery, eating junk food, preferring virtual reality to the real thing and using cell phones excessively. In every scene, a group of people wearing adidas gear walks through the dark scenes seemingly “overcoming it,” while a singer proclaims “Your future is not mine.” At the end, the group of nonconformists arrives at a brightly lit tunnel with the word “future” at the end, presumably a place where these negative things don’t exist.

I stopped and re-watched the commercial several times because of one very brief, yet poignant, scene that I couldn’t (and can’t) wrap my head around. At about 15 seconds in, we get a close-up of a person in a yellow hazardous materials suit, boots and full gas mask. As the camera pans out, we see two people walking through a greenhouse that is tinged pink with the light of LEDs and foggy with the clouds of some sort of insinuated “chemicals” that the men in yellow suits are liberally spraying all over the greenhouse plants. Overall, it seems like every attempt was made to make greenhouse production look as unnatural, futuristic and harmful as possible — an environment that people should avoid.

Misconceptions like these run rampant in the industry, and commercials like this one certainly don’t help the cause. With some consumers associating “greenhouse-grown” with GMOs, chemicals and “unnatural” growing processes, growers have their work cut out for them to show that their produce is just as good as field-grown crops, or perhaps even better. Some growers we’ve talked to have already made an effort to educate consumers through classes or outreach programs at grocery stores or by addressing consumer questions about the topic in a FAQ on their website.

But are we doing enough as an industry to dispel these negative assumptions about produce grown in controlled environments, whether it’s in a greenhouse or a plant factory? Please share your thoughts with me at kvarga@gie.net.

kvarga@gie.net | (216) 393-0290

Twitter: @Karen_GIE