• by P.J. Bednarski  @pjbtweet, January 7, 2020

“Zero calories and 100% natural... new Splenda Stevia, made from the leaves of the stevia plant,” the voiceover begins his pitch.

The woman hearing it in her modern kitchen takes it all in and interrupts: “Well, if stevia is a plant, what’s stopping people from growing their own?”

Thus begins the 60-second commercial for Splenda Stevia, which is followed by short takes of folks doing just that, except it looks like what they’re really doing is growing... something else.

This Splenda Stevia sweetener commercial has been passed around social media for a few months.  

But Ami Krishan, senior director of marketing, says the company couldn’t pass up the Golden Globes -- a show hosted by Ricky Gervais, with an audience probably culturally attuned to see something a little off-center.

So they probably got the joke when they saw the sloppy slacker manipulating his Game Boy exclaim, “I’m going to grow it in my closet, and there is nothing you -- or my mom -- can do about it!” There’s a woman walking through her grow-light aided crop in her basement, a dude with a stevia farm in his backyard and a guy in the diner with a dime bag on the counter. Any of this sound familiar?

“We thought we could shake up the category,” Krishan says, about the ad created by the Huamanaut craft agency in Chattanooga.  “There’s a lot of ignorance about stevia, so  we were looking for a message that was a balance of humor and fact.”

The fact is, you could grow stevia in the United States, probably most successfully in the hotter climates. And it’s perfectly legal everywhere.

Cannabis has been legalized or decriminalized in at least 33 states, and “growing your own” is a decades-old pursuit that once could have earned a prison sentence.

Calorie-free Splenda Stevia also made its TV debut just five days into the new year, when lots of people still think they’re really, really going to go on a diet.

It is just one of several sweeteners marketed by Heartland Foods, most notably Splenda itself, which gets its sweetness from sucralose. All the other Splenda products come wrapped in bright yellow packages (that make them distinct from Equal and Sweet’n Low, its competitors).   

Splenda Stevia’s package is mostly white, with green stevia leaves at the edges, emphasizing its “100% Natural” claim. Krishan says the brand thinks stevia is well-placed, as Americans seem more and more intent on being “green.”  

And sometimes things just work out. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which presents the Golden Globes, made news by announcing just before the show that its movie star audience would be served a “plant-based” meal on awards night.

“That’s an added benefit of our commercial being there,” Krishan said. “It was a surprise. We only found out about that the night before the show.”