V stands for...

My favorite part of being a copywriter is the concepting. That’s when you just sit around and come up with fun ideas. I won’t go into detail about my clients, but I’m currently doing some work for a company that sells vegetables. We’ll call it “Fresh Produce.” So what better message, from a sales perspective, a health perspective and a sustainability perspective than “Eat more vegetables.” But it’s advertising, it can’t be that simple. So we’re moving towards a more Michael Pollan-y strategy: shift your plate (and your lifestyle) so that meat is a side dish and veggies are the main dish, instead of the other way around.

Picture a pie chart cross-section of a plate. What we want people to do is to start making that vegetable V section of the plate bigger than it currently is. This benefits not only my client, but also the planet and the health of the person eating (this is why I love my job!)

So I start throwing out some ideas: we want to make that “V” bigger. And V also stands for vegetable, vibrancy, variety, value… all things we want our consumers to increase. I got a little over excited and ran with the thought… “Up your veggies, up your variety, up your value. UP YOUR V!” I exclaimed at my company brainstorming session.

I was met with stares and incredulous giggles.

“Audrey,” (more giggles) “I don’t think our client is going to go for the slogan: ‘Fresh Produce. Up your V!”

Oh, suddenly I saw the connotation. My second idea, “Make your V bigger,” didn’t sound too much better.

If anyone reading this doesn’t get the reference, let’s just say the idea was quickly followed by a suggestion of “The Vegetable Monologues” in which stalks of asparagus discuss coming of age and carrots talk about when they first began to sprout.