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Molly Dean

Gary Deaton

WRC 4444

December 5, 2012

Branding the Banana: A Rhetorical Analysis of Chiquita via Ideological Criticism

From slipping on banana peels to “going bananas”, monkey associations and comic

innuendo, the banana is all around us. It is the world’s most popular fruit, weighing in as the

fourth-largest product overall, behind wheat, rice, and corn. Americans consume more bananas

than apples and oranges combined (Koeppel xiii). Praised as a source of potassium, beloved as

an easy-to-grab healthy snack, and preferred by children and adults alike, the banana is often the

cheapest fruit in the produce section. For many American consumers, Chiquita is synonymous

with bananas. The Chiquita banana is, to quote its corporate slogan, “Quite Possibly, The

World’s Perfect Food®.”

What reality underlies Chiquita’s representation of itself? This research question paved

the way for this ideological criticism of Chiquita bananas and their website – Chiquita.com – as a

primary artifact of brand management and image perception. In their efforts to overcome the

notoriety of the United Fruit Company, Chiquita Brands has created a consumer-friendly

corporate identity through promotional strategies and advertising campaigns, as laid out of their

website. This analysis of Chiquita’s marketing decisions raises issues of ethnic and gender

representations, and critiques their corporate claims of commitment to social responsibility and

sustainability.

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The idea to pursue bananas as a project topic arose from a culmination of two books and

a personal experience. Five weeks studying abroad in Costa Rica, finishing Gabriel Garcia

Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, and encountering a revelatory introduction into the

history of the United Fruit Company in Peter Chapman’s Bananas led me to this interest. Before

I began my research, I had given the banana very little thought beyond my internal debate over

its ripeness in the produce section – “green or yellow?” During my time in Costa Rica, however,

I found myself touring a banana plantation, admiring the exotic fruiting plant alongside the road,

and cooking plantains with my home-stay “mama”. I was drawn into the poignant and

beautifully written fiction of Marquez, which revealed unpleasant truths of agricultural

exploitation. Over the course of the summer, my perspective of the banana – a yellow fruit with

which I had been so ignorantly familiar – was radically expanded.

In the words of author Virginia Scott Jenkins, “A study of the banana at first may appear

frivolous, but the social history of the use of everyday food can offer a window into the culture

of the United States” (vii). The goal of this project is to dig into what Peter Chapman describes

as, “the banana’s weird allure” and to discover the embedded ideology in the dominant and long-

lasting narrative of Chiquita bananas (18). I seek to examine the rhetorical strengths and

weaknesses in Chiquita’s ideological representation, specifically through their corporate website,

and to do so with an academic objectivity and neutrality. After an overview of Chiquita Brands’

historical and advertising background, I will provide a brief description of the methodology of

ideological criticism before moving into an analysis of Chiquita’s web site as a rhetorical

artifact. The analysis will focus on how Chiquita.com’s presentation and content create a brand

image, or ideology, for consumers to buy into.

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An appropriate way to begin exploring Chiquita’s ascent into “super brand” status is by

delving into the history of their predecessor, The United Fruit Company. Situating Chiquita

within its historical context will set up an analysis of the brand’s modern era.

United Fruit’s Legacy

The collective optimism and forward-thinking mentality of America’s hundredth birthday

was embodied by the Great Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. During the summer months of

1876, over ten-million visitors – a fifth of the country’s population – came to see new inventions

from around the world such as the steam engine, mechanical pencils, Heinz ketchup, and

Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone (Koeppel 51). In the immaculate horticultural hall, among

the orchids, pineapples, and orange trees, the banana made its official American debut. Author of

Conquest of the Tropics, Frederick Upham recalls his first impression of a “scrubby banana tree

from beneath whose fronds actually grew a diminutive bunch of bananas” as a seven-year-old:

“It was the tangible, living, and expressive symbol of the far-distant and mysterious tropics” (20-

1).

Prior to the Centennial Exhibition, Schooner captain Lorenzo Baker brought 160 bunches

of bananas over an 11 day journey from Jamaica to sell in New Jersey in 1870. The exotic fruit

had been available after the Civil War as a luxury, but a price tag to match of ten cents apiece

(about two dollars today) severely limited its popularity. In the following decades, Baker

established a market for bananas in New England after a series of partnerships; first with Boston

produce agent Andrew Preston and later with Brooklyn native Minor Keith, who, 3,500 miles

south, had built a railway across Costa Rica. The United Fruit Company was established in 1899.

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That same year four Italian immigrants began importing bananas from Honduras into New

Orleans which led to the creation of the Standard Fruit Company. These two companies, United

Fruit (UF) and Standard Fruit, would come to dominate the American banana market in the

twentieth century. Today, we know them, respectively, as Chiquita and Dole.

According to Virgina Scott Jenkins, author of Bananas: An American History, “American

fruit companies taught Americans to eat bananas at the same time as they encouraged people of

the Carribean basin to grow bananas on a commercial basis” (18). Imperialism and colonial

acquisitions allowed for a greater expansion in the American market. UF’s presence spread

throughout Central America from Costa Rica into Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, and the

Dominican Republic (Chapman 49). They began to overshadow their Standard Fruit rival and

monopolize the market – buying up land from peasant farmers, building plantations and

railroads, evading taxes, and setting the prices of bananas.

Handling bananas has always been a delicate business. UF’s white shipping vessels, also

known as ‘The Great White Fleet’, carried the precious cargo of bananas and, eventually, tourists

on cruises. Transporting the perishable fruit presented a challenge for American importers, until

the invention of refrigerated steamships in 1903 which revolutionized ocean transportation. By

1915, the fleet had grown to 95 ships, each with the capacity to carry up to a half million bananas

(Koeppel 250). The impressive fleet of vessels would later be commandeered by the U.S. Navy

during WWII, yielding a great loss for the industry as a whole, well beyond the effect that both

World Wars had on the banana trade.

Under the leadership of an ambitious Russian, Samuel Zemurray, also known as the

‘Banana Man’, UF continued to grow, but with an increasing authority whose ethics were

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questionable. In the late 1920’s, the banana industry was simultaneously coping with economic

depression, the westward spread of a banana-killing disease, and labor unrest throughout Central

America.1 The new wave of leadership’s response to discontented banana industry laborers

amidst the international turmoil of the decade was heavy-handed; as “strikes, worker riots and

demands for better wages and conditions [grew]” so did “the measures taken by banana

companies to squelch them” (Koeppel 251).

A brutal example of such squelching measures taken by the “banana barons” occurred in

a small town of Columbia. In the infamous 1929 banana massacre, a UF sponsored (and U.S.

trained) squad opened fire on a crowd of strikers and their families who had gathered in the main

plaza after Sunday mass. Despite efforts by UF and Colombian military to cover up the

massacre, the estimated number of casualties ranges in the thousands. Colombian native Gabriel

García Márquez included the concealed history in his Nobel prize-winning novel, One Hundred

Years of Solitude, as recounted to him by his grandfather who lived through the massacre

(Chapman 92). As Márquez hauntingly describes the chaos of the nightmarish slaughter, “They

were penned in, swirling about in a gigantic whirlwind that little by little was being reduced to its

epicenter as the edges were systematically being cut off all around like an onion being peeled by

the insatiable and methodical shears of the machine guns (329).

                                                                                                                         1  Panama disease is an especially destructive microbial fungus that plagued Central American banana plantations for decades. The banana is a strange fruit: it’s not a tree, it’s the world’s largest herb; the fruit is actually a giant berry; and – here’s the kicker – “the banana does not come to us by the process of botanical intercourse” as Chapman says. It’s this genetic weakness that makes the banana so incredibly vulnerable to disease. Baby banana plants grow from the parent’s roots because the fruit itself is seedless; therefore every banana is basically a clone, which makes the monocultural model of the UF and its counterparts even more problematic. So when the Panama disease hit (whose strains are still alive and well today, leading to speculation about the future of the banana industry) scientists in laboratories were scrambling to breed a resistant variety that was as tough as the most popular variety of the time. Today, we eat the Cavendish variety of bananas, but our grandparents ate Gros Michel or “Big Mike” bananas, which are long gone, thanks to the Panama disease. The parameters of this project didn’t permit me to get into the science of the banana, which is unfortunate because I find the biological discussion of the fruit fascinating. Dan Koeppel expounds upon the subject much more in his natural history, Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World.  

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By the mid 1930s, the term ‘banana republic’ (not to be confused with the American

clothing chain) was made common after an appearance in Esquire magazine. What some

consider to be a pejorative, author of Banana Cultures John Soluri describes as a “tragically

powerful metaphor [that] has served as both an explanation of and a justification for the political

conflicts , poverty, and U.S. interventions that were at the center of twentieth-century Central

American history” (2). Chapman provides a more pointed definition with the familiar term

initially seeming “inoffensively jokey, at worst a form of shorthand for political and economic

mismanagement, probably with corruption thrown in, plus an element of national dependence on

some large external force”. Chapman concludes that “by its actions, United Fruit had invented

the concept and reality of the banana republic” (5-6).

The end of World War II marked a shift, with the emergence of “a new banana industry

that [relied] as much on marketing as it [did] on blunt tactics” (Koeppel 253). In the kairotic

framework of United Fruit’s “complex” history, Chiquita was born (Chiquita.com). Having

established a sense of the brand’s background, I pose the question: How has the narrative

adopted by Chiquita allowed them to seemingly have transcended the notoriety of their

predecessor – The United Fruit Company?

The following sections lead to an in-depth examination of Chiquita Brands’ marketing

campaigns within the “history of the present” – the modern era of the UF Company under the

Chiquita brand name. I will focus on the company’s main website as a primary rhetorical artifact

of their corporate identity through the lens of ideological criticism.

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Branding the Banana

Chiquita claims to be “the first company to brand a banana” (Chiquita.com). Innovative

and original marketing paved the UF brand success ahead of Chiquita. In the words of Koeppel,

“The banana barons marketed their product in ways that have never occurred to farmers or

grocers before”, for instance, UF was the first to include a supermarket coupon in 1924 with

recipes for cornflakes topped with banana slices and they also offered free textbooks to

American grade schools in 1939, filled with information about bananas, of course ("Yes, We

Will Have No Bananas"). A series of advertising strategies have propelled the brand to its

current “banana giant” status since its official trademark in 1947, but it was the power of an

original ditty that really helped Chiquita Brands to take off.

When the Chiquita jingle hit the radio airwaves in 1944, it was an instant hit. The catchy

tune was played 376 times a day at its height, making it “arguably the most well-known

advertising melody of all time” (Koeppel116). The song’s “tuneful mascot” was none other than

Chiquita Banana herself. Modernly known as “Miss Chiquita”, she was a creation of cartoonist

Dik Browne, also known for his Hagar the Horrible comic. In an accented voice, Miss Chiquita

instructed banana consumers, with the following lyrics set to a calypso beat:

I’m Chiquita banana and I’ve come to say Bananas have to ripen in a certain way When they’re fleck’d with brown and have a golden hue Bananas taste the best and are the best for you You can put them in a salad You can put them in a pie-aye Any way you want to eat them It’s impossible to beat them But, bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator.2

                                                                                                                         2 The company knew the advice of this last line to be false, as they actually shipped their precious cargo in refrigerated vessels.

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After her wildly successful introduction, Miss Chiquita moved on from radio to

Technicolor movie advertisements to instructional cookbooks. She was the spokesperson for

educational campaigns for banana consumers by UF’s “home economics department”,

instructing mothers and children alike. It was Miss Chiquita’s popularity, in conjunction with the

idea to ship bananas in cardboard boxes, which helped bail the company out of a 1950s slump in

earnings and shares. Having “found a marketing niche” with their shipping conversion to boxes

led them to the decision to brand the banana (Jenkins 65). In the words of Soluri:

By turning an agricultural commodity into a retail product distinguishable by a

brand name, United Fruit hoped to create a demand for a ‘premium’ export

banana… In 1963 United Fruit launched a multi-million dollar advertising

campaign in order to introduce its new product. Company officials chose

‘Chiquita’ for the brand name after marketing surveys revealed that consumer

recognition remained extremely high… Once a mere salesgirl, Miss Chiquita was

now United Fruit’s top banana. (184)

Another major identifying factor, in addition to Miss Chiquita,

was the Chiquita label. As business was changing “from that of selling

a commodity to that of selling a branded, identifiable product”, an

identifiable icon was added to the product (Jenkins 73). Beginning in

1963, the “blue sticker” was hand-placed (to prevent bruising by

machines) on clusters of the fruit “to help differentiate theirs from the rest” (Chapman 163).

According to Chiquita.com, the adhesive labels “have become an iconic symbol for high-quality

fruit and produce.” Today, the familiar stickers continue to “promote the use of bananas” with

clever designs and cute phrases (Jenkins 74).

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Why the Chiquita banana is ripe for rhetorical study: A methodological description

Rhetorical theory scholar Sonja Foss defines ideological criticism as “looking beyond the

surface structure of an artifact to discover the beliefs, values, and assumptions it suggests”. Foss

further defines an ideology as “a pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of

some aspect(s) of the world”. These beliefs “reflect a group’s ‘fundamental social, economic,

political or cultural interests’” (209). To apply Foss’ method to Chiquita’s website, Chiquita

Brands International (as a group) is interpreting the Chiquita banana (the aspect and also the

product) to reflect their corporate interests of consumption and brand loyalty. In light of this

description, how does Chiquita interpret the banana to reflect their corporate interests? How do

they manage their brand and image perception through their website?

Navigating Chiquita.com

With the jingle, Miss Chiquita, and the blue sticker in mind, the discussion moves into

the 21st century and online. Chiquita Brand International’s website, Chiquita.com, offers the

most current and comprehensive representation of the company. Cucchi and Glaister,

contributors to Advertising Agency, expound upon the importance of “brand expression”,

including name, logo, packaging, and Web design, as “the most tangible manifestation of [a

brand’s] essence.” The ideology, or essence of a brand, is composed of its values and beliefs,

oftentimes – in the modern age of the internet – conveyed to the general public and consumers

through a corporate website (Foss 209).

Chiquita.com is a major vehicle for Chiquita Brand’s expression and therefore a

rhetorical artifact in how it embodies the overarching ideology of the company. In his article,

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"Establishing A Presence On The World Wide Web: A Rhetorical Approach," Kevin Hunt

examines how both the content and structure of an organization’s website can create professional

and “communal” ethos. Hunt describes the “classic rhetorical function” that virtual sites serve as

“means of persuading potential readers to take action, to explore the organization’s information,

to interact with the organization, perhaps even to join” or – more specifically, in Chiquita’s case

– to engage consumers and create a greater accessibility to the brand, including information,

history, and product descriptions (520).

In their Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), communication scholars Petty and

Cacioppo’s state that there are two routes to persuasion: the central route is a cognitive

awareness and thoughtful consideration of an argument, while the peripheral route is less

engaged in the content of a message, but more persuaded by peripheral components, such as

images or presentation (CIOS). This model is relevant to how Chiquita website visitors and

consumers process and receive the various messages and images being presented to them,

especially considering what we know about Chiquita’s overarching corporate interests to

promote consumption of their product and encourage brand loyalty. Examining Chiquita.com as

a rhetorical artifact requires careful attention to how the details of the website’s presentation and

content centrally and peripherally appeal to consumers.

The Chiquita homepage is a natural place to begin an analysis as it is also “an electronic

starting point for accessing information pertinent to the organization – as well as a metaphorical

device for creating a virtual home for the organization” (Hunt 520).

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Welcome to Chiquita: the Homepage

Logging on to the Chiquita Web site is to be greeted by an array of colorful images. The

familiar logo is situated in the top left corner to catch viewers’ attention. The eye sweeps across

the top of the page from the “Improving World Nutrition” mission statement to the “{Chiquita

Connect}” to social media in the upper right hand corner. A row of nine tabs in gradation from

green to blue buffer a slideshow of large scrolling images of happy (and white) parent-child duos

preparing snacks with blatantly labeled Chiquita fresh fruit. Finally, a right-side panel directs

visitors to “The Chiquita Difference” – that is, “social responsibility, sustainability, innovation,

community involvement, and more…”

The visual appeal and organization of the main page creates a sense of openness with its

layout and ease of navigation. The calming color scheme, with various shades of green that lend

themselves to the “sustainable” mentality, is inviting. The row of tabs are interactive, one need

simply scroll the cursor over the tab to find information regarding “Products”, “Recipes”,

“Healthy Living”, “Promotions”, “The Chiquita Difference”, “Our Company”, “Careers”,

“Investor Relations”, and “Foodservice & Licensing”, from left to right.

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Having established a sense of Chiquita.com’s superficial structure, attention shifts to

content and presentation. For the purpose of this project, I will specifically examine three tabs

which I feel to be the most significant in contributing to Chiquita’s ideology – that is “Our

Company”, “Healthy Living”, and “The Chiquita Difference”. My choice to focus on these three

tabs hinged upon how they collectively emphasized the virtue of Chiquita, in accordance with

the dominant ideology of Chiquita as a brand worthy of consumers’ loyalty.

“Our Company”: How Chiquita tells its story

“The Chiquita Story” refers to the company’s history as “a story of unique and positive

transformation,” including some “storied moments in its past,” but now “proudly focused” and

“dedicated” to the “core values” (adopted in 2000) of “integrity, respect, opportunity, and

responsibility” (Chiquita.com). Based on such language, a website visitor may marvel at how far

the company has come, but it begs the question, from just where has it come?

The “Chiquita Story” webpage includes an interactive timeline dating back to 1870, with

selected bits from their over-a-century long history – “100 years and counting” – but it’s no

surprise that there are some gaps within the condensed historical synopsis, for instance, the

whole decade of the 1920’s during which the Banana massacre occurred in Colombia. In his

model of persuasion, theorist Hugh Rank points out a major strategy used by persuaders of

downplaying their own weak points (Lane). Glossing over or omitting the less-than-flattering

bits of a “storied past” is strategic dishonesty. Website visitors will have to look elsewhere to get

the complete “Chiquita Story.” Chapman criticizes Chiquita’s simplicity in understating their

“complex history”, positing that “several aspects of the chronology presented… do not appear

complex at all” (193).

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Chiquita.com’s “Our Company” page is subtitled: “Stickers, songs, and a story of

transformation.” Having situated these marketing devices within the United Fruit Company’s

history earlier in this analysis, I’d like to examine the implications of these key components of

the Chiquita narrative in a modern context. Chiquita banana’s narrative and marketing decisions,

particularly through Chiquita.com’s “Our Company” and “Healthy Living” tabs, raise issues of

ethnic and gender representations, which fit into an ideological critique of their corporate

(online) identity.

Gendered Marketing

Miss Chiquita, the “first lady of fruit”, is a particularly rich example of gendered

advertising choices. Feminist writer and current research professor Cynthia Enloe expounds upon

the original intent and influence of Miss Chiquita:

United Fruit sales strategists set out to do the impossible – to create in housewives

a brand-name loyalty for a generic fruit. They wanted women to think “Chiquita”

when they went to the grocery store to buy bananas. Roosevelt’s ‘Good Neighbor’

policy and Carmen Miranda’s Hollywood success had set the stage; animated

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cartoons and the commercial jingle did the rest. Between the woman consumer

and the fruit there now was only a corporation with the friendly face of a bouncy

Latin American market woman. (Enloe 129)

It seems it was Miss Chiquita who “branded the banana,” as it was her character’s

popularity, in conjunction with the jingle, that led company officials to launch a multi-million

dollar advertising campaign with “Chiquita” as the official brand name in 1963 (Soluri 184).

Enloe suggests that from her advent, Miss Chiquita’s target audience was women, more

specifically suburban women – “The companies envisaged their customers to be women:

mothers and housewives concerned about their families’ nutrition and looking for a reliable

product” (128).

The United Fruit Company’s efforts to broaden consumers’ perceptions of the banana’s

goodness (not just sliced atop breakfast cereal but also for dinner!) began at the turn of the

twentieth century. Jenkins explains how the increasing availability of fresh fruit – particularly

bananas – altered the American diet and, within fifty years, “Bananas disappeared from formal

menus and etiquette books and became the comfort food of childhood and old age” (101). As

bananas began to shed their “novelty and luxury status” to become “a staple item”, the U.F.

home economics department inundated the American public with ingenious ways to serve

bananas – baked, broiled, pan-fried, in a salad, in baked goods and desserts – via pamphlets and

printed propaganda (Jenkins 101).3

                                                                                                                         3 Interestingly enough, United Fruit even “harboured hopes that banana bread could outdo ‘apple pie’” as iconic American, but “the apple held firm… in the nation’s affections” (Chapman 113).

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The etiquette books Jenkins refers to are the window

to a more sensitive, but in many ways necessary discussion of

a gendered aspect of the fruit itself: its shape. As Jenkins

sums it up, “bananas are frankly phallic” (158). Even upon its

American introduction, back when the exotic fruit was more

a status symbol than a staple (as the plantain had long been in

South America), the banana “came peeled, sliced, and

wrapped in foil, mostly to prevent the fruit’s suggestive shape

from offending Victorian sensibilities” (Koeppel 52). At the

turn of the century, well-bred American ladies were taught

the correct way to eat a banana: with a knife and fork, cut into bite-sized pieces, never directly

conveyed to the mouth (Chapman 16).

An aspect of Miss Chiquita’s charm that is not addressed on Chiquita’s website is how a

female figure – as educator, salesperson, etc. – can help to overcome erotic associations. In the

earliest cartoon version of Chiquita banana, she is overtly effeminate in ways that permit (at least

temporarily) exemption from “salacious interpretation” (Chapman 16). It was the dynamic Miss

Chiquita, then, who served as the company’s ticket to transcending phallic symbolism by

creating a feminine familiarity and confidence with their product.

Chiquita’s appeals to women extend beyond the kitchen with ads, such as Chiquita

Banana’s first Technicolor movie advertisement, “Miss Chiquita Banana’s Beauty Treatment”

(1945) in which “she burst into song to revive an exhausted housewife,” offering the advice that

“a daily dose of bananas will make you look perfection” (Jenkins 71). Certainly, Miss Chiquita,

“who cut a striking figure with her smooth, blemish-free skin, long, flowing skirt, high heels, and

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an oversized hat adorned with tropical fruits” knew what she was talking about when she said

“You’ll find by eating fruit you’ll have more beautiful appearance and complexion” (Soluri 162;

Jenkins 71). This type of targeting women’s concerns for their appearance extended into the

1990s “Quite Possibly, The World’s Perfect Food” advertisement era, with an ad that “showed a

vanity table, cluttered with cosmetics and a banana peel, with the caption: ‘True beauty lies

beneath the skin’” (Jenkins 77).

The political climate during which Miss Chiquita made her debut is also telling in terms

of the company’s intentional ethnic representations. The cultural and geopolitical context of the

1947 “Chiquita Banana” trademark is connected to another famous banana lady – Carmen

Miranda. “Dubbed the ‘Brazilian Bombshell’ by the U.S. media, the Portugese-born Miranda

took both Broadway and Hollywood by storm during World War II” (Soluri 162). The extreme

popularity of Miranda’s 1940s films such as Down Argentine Way (1940), Weekend in Havana

(1941), and The Gang’s All Here (1943), can be linked to President Franklin Rooselvelt’s launch

of the Latin American ‘Good Neighbor’ policy. According to Enloe, “Carmen Miranda’s movies

helped make Latin America safe for American banana companies at a time when US imperialism

was coming under wider regional

criticism” (124).

Together, Miranda and the

banana climbed in iconic pop culture

status with their “sexy and comic”

combination (Soluri 164). Miranda

charmed Americans with her vivacity,

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bringing a “non-threatening form of tropical exoticism to the North American stage and screen”

(Soluri164). With her “tutti-frutti” hat, samba music, and “limited but flamboyant English”,

Miranda was, for many Americans during the 1940s, “a guide to Latin culture” (Enloe 125,127).

Though she was not officially acknowledged as the model for Miss Chiquita, their resemblance

is uncanny – Rich Cohen describes that “Like Miranda, Chiquita wore a fruit basket on her head;

like Miranda, Chiquita high-kicked in heels; like Miranda, Chiquita tossed her fluted skirt,

showing the doughboys a little too much thigh as she sang her silly song” (253). The political

atmosphere surrounding Miranda, “an obvious inspiration” for Miss Chiquita, adds another layer

of interest to the timeless advertising mascot (TV ACRES).

Miss Chiquita has come a long way from the original

Dik Browne Banana character in her 68 year legacy. In

1987, she shed her cartoonish features and became a

woman.4 “Artist Oscar Grillo, creator of the Pink Panther,

transformed her into a beautiful brown skinned woman with

a teasing smile who wore the traditional fruit filled

sombrero, gold loop earrings along with a blue dress

adorned with ruffled sleeves and hems edged in yellow”

(TV ACRES). “The change,” according to Chiquita.com,

“reflected the image the public had of Miss Chiquita as a

real person.”5

                                                                                                                         4  Information as to whether this cartoon to woman transformation was originally intended for Miss Chiquita was not readily available. My research suggests it was an organic development as the company re-envisioned their mascot. 5  I’d be very interested as to how Chiquita came about such a discovery of just what the public had in mind, particularly because the newest characterization of Miss Chiquita presents her as a bit of an airhead. Sure, she’s got

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The company has had a number of actresses take on the iconic role of Miss Chiquita,

including New York’s Angela Lanza, who was the brand’s smiling face for the “Chiquita Perfect

For Life Tour” in 2001. Before Lanza, another New Yorker, Elizabeth Testa, won the national

talent search for the honor of “raising brand awareness” during the “landmark occasion” of Miss

Chiquita’s 50th birthday in 1997 (Chiquita.com) Of the current Miss Chiquita, the website reads:

The latest in a series of women handpicked to portray the number one ambassador

of fruit is Jenny Canales of Los Angeles. In 2003, she launched her duties as Miss

Chiquita by ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in

celebration of the 100th anniversary of Chiquita Brands International's listing on

the NYSE. She also made a national cameo on the CBS hit reality television show

Undercover Boss in 2010. Jenny enjoys greeting the public, entertaining people

with her famous Chiquita jingle and teaching both kids and adults about the

importance of good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle… Miss Chiquita continues to

reign supreme as the indisputable first lady of fruit.

Ethnic Representations

While Chiquita claims part of their mission is “to help the world’s consumers broaden

mindsets about nutrition and bring healthy, nutritious and convenient foods that taste great and

improve people’s lives,” I argue that their means of advertising serve to narrow mindsets,

particularly through glamorizing the exoticism of banana production in Latin American.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       charm and looks, exuberance and optimism, but what about brains? The current version of Miss Chiquita is a great example of how physical attractiveness creates a “halo effect” (Cialdini’s principle of liking).

Dean 19    

 

The top exporters of the “most exported fruit in the world” are Latin American countries,

with Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia and Guatemala among the top five. (Taylor & Scharlin 2)

According to the Food and Agriculture Organizaion (FAO), Ecuador – the top-exporter and a

country whose size is comparable to the state of Nevada – exports nearly three times as many

bananas as the second leading exporter, Costa Rica. “Bananas grow in distant realms, mysterious

places, out of sight and mind” (Chapman 14). Though it’s unlikely that the average American

consumer could list the top exporters, there’s a good chance they could link the banana’s origins

to Central or South America. Even with bananas available to us in all seasons, there is an

enduring connection between the banana and the tropical zones in which it is grown; there’s a

lingering exotic facet to the fruit.

The 1944 jingle conjured up visions of a tropical climate with its lyrics and beat, in

addition to Miss Chiquita’s original personification of a marketplace woman instructing

consumers throughout the following decades. John Soluri writes in his book, Banana Cultures,

that “As late as the 1970s, fruit company advertising continued to get mileage out of worn

stereotypes of Latin American

women”, referring to Chiquita’s

publicity of their mascot, more

specifically their representation

of 1972 Miss Chiquita,

Nicaraguan-born model Barbara

Carrera (186). 6

                                                                                                                         6  Carrera was also, interestingly enough, a Bond girl, which is telling about the beauty standards Chiquita held.  

Dean 20    

 

Today, Chiquita.com captures a sense of the Latin American “other” in its photos. The

“Our Company” page is littered with vaguely captioned images of non-white people with

unidentifiable races – tan-skinned school children working at their desks7, a smiling worker

admiring his bunch of bagged bananas. The subtle inclusion and placement of these images may

go unnoticed – as such peripheral details often do, according to the ELM – but they are an

intentional nod of acknowledgment (arguably staged and not necessarily an accurate

representation) to the “banana cultures” from which the beloved fruit comes. The company’s

general allusions to the faraway banana lands and cultures are indistinct, but present. Such

minimalistic recognition of the banana producers themselves serves as a reminder that Chiquita

Brands is a banana distributor. Select details about individual banana farms and the fruits true

origins are optimistically referenced in the “Chiquita Difference” section.

“Healthy Living” with Chiquita

Praising the health benefits of the banana has been a long-

time strategy for Chiquita. When the banana was new to American,

United Fruit really pushed the angle of the banana’s nutrition, even

hiring doctors “to convince mothers that bananas were good for

children” (Koeppel “Yes…”). Chapman lists the many ways in

which “bananas have been said to solve virtually every health

problem: obesity, blood pressure, depression, constipation...” (15).8

                                                                                                                         7  An explanation for the images of the school-children is not explicitly given on the website. If Chiquita has specific programs for Latin American schools, information about it is not very accessible online. 8  To my knowledge, there’s no banana equivalent to the old adage that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, but it would seem as though there should be.

Dean 21    

 

Chiquita sponsored a contest to revise the lyrics of the jingle in 1997. A fifth grade

teacher from California won the context with a new “far less sexy, less latin” version:

I’m Chiquita Banana, and I’ve come to say I offer good nutrition for you every day. And when you buy Chiquita you will always know, You’ve got the best bananas anyone can grow! Underneath the crescent yellow, you’ll find vitamins And fiber, instant energy to feel good. It’s a gift from Mother Nature and A natural addition to your table. A wholesome, healthy, pure banana; Look for Chiquita’s label! (Koeppel 118)

The revised lyrics reflected a change in the Chiquita brand’s marketing – “advice about storing

(generic) bananas was replaced by a message that not all bananas were the same”, by

emphasizing the nutritional value and superiority of not just any banana, but the Chiquita banana

(Soluri 186).

The discussion of Chiquita’s gender representation can be expanded to include the pitch

of “healthy living” – a present example of gendered marketing on Chiquita’s website. The

Healthy Living tab includes “Tips for Parents” and “Nutrition for” women, men, and seniors.

The “Nutrition for women” page goes into further details about “eating right” throughout

pregnancy and menopause. The Chiquita nutritionist would advise you that bananas are a

lifetime fruit, a part of a woman’s “special nutrient needs for each stage of life”.

Chiquita’s advocating a healthy lifestyle is a push for their brand at large. Beyond

bananas, a balanced diet with more fruits and vegetables means maintaining a consumption of

Chiquita products; “healthy living” actually means healthy living with not just any, but Chiquita

fruits and veggies. “To help meet the daily recommended nutrition guidelines,” the website

encourages health-conscious snackers to try "Chiquita Apple Bites, Chiquita Super Crunchy

Fruit Chips and, of course, our world-famous Chiquita bananas and Chiquita pineapples.”

Dean 22    

 

Chiquita.com’s reference to the

American Heart Association’s dietary

restrictions for children and the USDA’s “My

Plate” program also provides ethos, or

legitimacy, for their recommendations.

Encouraging parents, and especially moms, to

choose Chiquita products for the sake of their

children is a classic pathos appeal. Outside their website, the brand has offered nutritional advice

in the quips of banana stickers, particularly the 2007 labels with clever phrases such as, “Peel

Me-I’m Fat Free!”, “PSSST! I’m Full of Vitamins”, “Guilt-Free Snacking”, “Brain Fuel”, and

“Yum, Yum. Potassi-yum!”

The Chiquita sticker, “the most minimal form of packaging imaginable”, has evolved

since its 1963 invention (Walker). This marketing strategy has continued to be a distinction for

the company into its modern era. The 2010 online design campaign was a first in “community

banana branding” in the way that it involved a specific demographic of consumers. As Rob

Walker explains in his “Banana Democracy” New York Times article, “Chiquita set up a Web

tool for people to whip up their own sticker drag-and-drop mixes, and an obliging public created

more than 25,000 of them in less than five months”. BrandForce advertising agency’s efforts to

make the Chiquita brand more relevant to the under-35 crowd included an “integrated program

[that] carried over into retail, leveraging Chiquita's iconic stickers to create awareness and drive

consumers to the website”.

Dean 23    

 

Redemptive Qualities of “The Chiquita Difference”

An additional aspect of Chiquita’s online representation worthy of study is how they

establish their corporate identity in regards to social and environmental values, both in how they

position themselves as a brand that American consumers can trust and in how they garner ethos

during a time in which the ‘food movement’ and sustainability are gaining momentum. “The

Chiquita Difference means everything to us,” reads Chiquita.com. “It’s our promise to the world

that we will consistently provide nutritious products of the highest quality, customer service

that’s second to none, and corporate social responsibility programs that lead the way.”

The Chiquita Difference is organized into the following categories – Social

Responsibility, Sustainability, Innovation, Community Involvement, Quality & Food Safety, CR

(Corporate Responsibility) Reports, and Ethics & Codes of Conduct. A closer look into the

2007/2008 Annual CR Report reveals vague, pathos-driven language in Chiquita’s renewal of

“unwavering commitment to high legal, ethical, environmental and social standards” for the sake

of “our company, employees, shareholders, customers, other stakeholders and our planet.”

Claiming corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the entire planet may make a consumer feel

warm and fuzzy, but how can that claim be sufficiently supported or proved?

The components of “The Chiquita Difference” tab are chock-full of powerful images and

charismatic language meant to persuade consumers and website visitors of the company’s

sincerity in “caring for the world”. It is hard not to be convinced by the repeated emphasis on

Chiquita’s “responsibility” in the community and on a global scale and their “commitment” to

the environment and public health. Such catch phrases like “sustainability” and various

responsibilities to people and the planet are indicators of Chiquita’s keeping with the times.

Jumping aboard bandwagon causes, or at least vaguely referencing support of “trends” like the

Dean 24    

 

food movement, health consciousness, and environmentally-friendliness, is a classic marketing

method.9

Corporate Social Responsibility

Other multi-national corporations on board with the CSR doctrine include Microsoft’s

Gates pouring billions into charity and Starbucks’ efforts to aid Kenyan coffee farmers. This type

of “philanthrocapitalism” or “cause marketing” serves to humanize brands, build brand

awareness and drive purchase and support (Phil & Co.). Peter Chapman expressed the following

skepticism of the “notion” of CSR:

The truth is that even the good Corporate Social Responsibility companies are

acting like United Fruit. While their intentions may be honourable they follow in

a long tradition laid down by none other than United Fruit itself… [who] by its

                                                                                                                         9  Superficially give the people what they want to hear and they’ll probably be happy – Chiquita must be “green”, just look at the color scheme of their website!

Dean 25    

 

actions might reasonably have claimed to have invented it [CSR]. None of that

was a guarantee against its abuses. (205)

Why does the Chiquita banana appear to be morally and ethically neutral in light of its

history within an extractive agricultural economy? Having adopted certification and labor rights

standards contributes to present-day Chiquita’s squeaky-clean image. When consumers actually

give thought to the origins of their beloved produce, the Chiquita website perpetuates the

perception of the company’s goodness. In reality, the banana is contradictory to the nation’s

local food movement – they grow best in more tropical climates than North America and

therefore will nearly always require a lot of handling and refrigeration (Chapman 13). For

American consumers, then, the alternative to giving up the incredibly popular fruit – highly

unlikely – is to have a confidence in the ethics of the companies, like Chiquita, that supply

bananas.10

Chiquita and the Rainforest Alliance

One of the major ways Chiquita has polished its environmental image is through its

partnership with The Rainforest Alliance. Husband and wife writers, researchers, and

environmental activists J. Gary Taylor and Patricia Scharlin authored Smart Alliance: How a

Global Corporation and Environmental Activists Transformed a Tarnished Brand. Their study

highlights how the alliance with the New York environmental organization – built on “risk,

transparency, and trust” – helped to reform the company at large and raise the bar of the banana

                                                                                                                         10  For many Americans (myself included) ignorance is bliss when it comes to where our produce comes from because we’ve been spoiled by the availability of produce out of season. The possibility of a shift in the status quo by “locavores” is an exciting prospect, and fodder for a separate project. For now, I will leave it to folks like Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver to get you fired up about the food movement.

Dean 26    

 

industry (16). According to Taylor and Scharlin, the voluntary and unlikely partnership with the

Rainforest Alliance marked “a crucial turning point in the history of a company [U.F.] originally

built on sheer size and arrogance" (3).

Eight years after the initial 1992 engagement between the

two, 100% of Chiquita owned farms were Rainforest Alliance

certified, which can further be broken down to 87% of total banana

volume forced from the certified farms by the year 2000. Like

Chiquita’s blue sticker, The Rainforest Alliance’s web site asserts

that their “little green frog is recognized by consumers around the world as the symbol of

environmental, social and economic sustainability.” The criteria for the Rainforest Alliance

certification are set by the Sustainable Agricultural Network (SAN). The SAN’s sustainable

agriculture standard is guided by the following ten principles: management system, ecosystem

conservation, wildlife preservation, water conservation, working conditions, occupational health,

community relations, integrated crop management, soil conservation, and integrated waste

management (sanstandards.org).

Sustainable efforts are a major way in which the Chiquita brand can “shed its unsavory

past” and distance itself from the notoriety of U.F. (Taylor & Scharlin 3). Environmental

partnerships, like with the Rainforest Alliance and their ‘Better Banana Project’, paint Chiquita

in a positive light because they are tangible efforts of improvement, even if it’s been a long time

coming. “Organic” and “fair trade” labels are also marketing tools, which lead to questions of a

corporation’s true motivation behind environmental policies (Moskin). “The Chiquita

Difference” is an important aspect of the company’s ideology as they move forward in their

market dominance.

Dean 27    

 

Chiquita’s Social Media

Chiquita brand’s ideology has been adapted to the present through social media

campaigns. The “Chiquita Connect” directs users to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Pinterest

from Chiquita.com. Social media is Chiquita’s modern day version of the of United Fruit’s

“home economics department”: Tweets and Pinterest recipes have replaced pamphlets and

cookbooks. The efforts of both marketing platforms, in their respective times, yield more ways to

connect with consumers and promote the use of their product. This kind of online networking is

so common these days but is an arguably necessary component for establishing an organization’s

“communal ethos” on the Web (Hunt 521). Chiquita’s rivals, Dole and Del Monte, are also

using these sites to drive consumers online. According to Progressive Grocer’s “Fresh Produce

Trends,” “Del Monte [Fresh Produce Co.] views activity within social media as long-term

community building for banana enthusiasts to share ideas and experiences.”

Beyond the connectivity and interactivity with the Chiquita brand that social media

creates, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest are means of persuasion. Web copywriter

and marketing consultant Jeff Sexton has applied Dr. Robert Cialdini’s principles, or “weapons”

Dean 28    

 

of influence specifically to social media (Social Media Examiner). The persuasive appeals of

reciprocity, scarcity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, and authority are at work

in Chiquita’s social media campaign. Retweets and gift-giving are reciprocal behaviors that

encourage consumer commitment to a brand, for example the recent ‘Chiquita Challenge’

Sweepstakes where Pinterest users “Repin [recipes] and Win” giftcards. The limited availability

of the prize, in this case Target giftcards for the holiday season, is an example of using scarcity

to motivate social media users. Del Monte similarly initiates reciprocation by giving away

tropical trip and sweepstakes through their Facebook page.

Cialdini’s principle of commitment and social proof are reflected by the number of

Facebook “likes” (126,612 for ‘Chiquita Banana’) and Twitter followers (3,594 of @Chiquita)

that further generate conversation about Chiquita bananas among themselves. Sexton virtually

extends the principle of liking to how “we give extra credence to … corporations’ landing pages

displaying a better sense of social media savvy in their overall design layout”; liking the Chiquita

Banana Facebook page indicates your preference and agreement, essentially your blessing of the

company as a consumer.11 Through persuasive social media and a charismatic website, Chiquita

has established itself as an authority on bananas and a brand that consumers can put their trust in.

Conclusion

The banana, and moreover the Chiquita banana, “stakes an extraordinary claim on

consumer affections” (Chapman 17). An understanding of the corporate longevity of this

household brand requires an examination of the Chiquita brand within its historical context in

                                                                                                                         11  It’s notable that the networking amongst consumers is essentially free publicity for Chiquita. Let the record show that I confess to “liking” the Chiquita banana Facebook page in the name of research.

Dean 29    

 

comparison to its modern representation. Despite her problematic gender and ethnic

representations, Miss Chiquita has endured nearly a century’s worth of Chiquita marketing, and

so have the recognizable blue Chiquita stickers. Well-publicized efforts toward environmental

sustainability and social responsibility support the brand’s ethos in today’s market and

differentiate them, at least superficially, from their United Fruit predecessor. Chiquita.com’s

presentation and organization lends to the company’s virtual ethos and creates their corporate

image as a brand consumers can confidently support.

Though much has been written on the topic of bananas, this project is unique in its

contribution to the academic conversation as it is a rhetorical study of Chiquita Brands. As far as

I found in my research, there has not been an analysis of the Chiquita web page. Readers can

gain knowledge about the origins of the familiar banana and its overwhelming American

popularity, as well as gain a contextualized understanding of the Chiquita brand name.

Personally, this project has taught me how to critically examine a corporate web site. In my

efforts to compile and cross-reference the many messages directed towards consumers into an

overall ideology, I gained a more attentive eye for situating modern presentation(s) within its

history.

Amidst their praise of Chiquita’s Rainforest Alliance certification, Taylor and Scharlin

assert that “When they are reliably informed, consumers can be transformed from passive

victims of corporate spin into a legitimate force focused on making responsible companies

serious agents for positive societal change” (3). To hark back to the Elaboration Likelihood

Model, consumers need to seek a more central than peripheral route of processing the marketing

devices and advertisement campaigns of a company like Chiquita.

Dean 30    

 

Bananas are an important topic as the American food movement gains momentum and

discussions of sustainability reach the international level. “The export banana game is a huge

and very serious global business” regardless of whether we recognize the influence of a domain

like Chiquita brands (Taylor & Scharlin 2). In light of this project, I would urge consumers to be

thoughtful and investigative in their decisions, especially in choosing a brand that they will likely

be committed to for a lifetime, in the case of Chiquita fruit. A giant corporation like

Chiquita/United Fruit with such a rich history as an incredibly successful banana distributor and

marketer easily overshadows the banana producer. In the case of the banana, the geographical

distance of its origins (for Americans) often equates to a mental or emotional distance from the

politics and social consequences of the fruit. My hope is that this project has helped to close that

distance and bridge banana consumers’ gap.

Dean 31    

 

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Dean 32    

 

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