President’s Choice “Crave More” or ask less? The construction of “ethics” in food advertising

This research paper explores six video advertisements from the President’s Choice “Crave More” campaign through the lens of food ethics and storytelling in advertising. A qualitative content analysis was used to code each of the videos for frequencies of ethical food tropes, and a storytelling framework was then applied to analyze how these tropes work together to position President’s Choice as an ethical brand. The findings suggest that President’s Choice uses tropes of food traceability, the place and production process of food, and images of food in its natural form and as an ingredient to convey messages of ethics to the food buying public. The advertisements use narration to allow for food to shine as the main character in the video, while human characters such as President’s Choice employees and farmers are considered supplementary to food. Ultimately, this paper posits that President’s Choice uses ethical food tropes to deconstruct the production process of food for the consumer in order to create an image that depicts the brand as “ethical”.