Dear Motts Juice:

I am the 8 month pregnant mother of a 2.5 year old son, so I’m pretty sure I’m smack in the middle of your target market demographic. Also, since we watch a slightly embarrassing amount of PBS On Demand, we’ve seen your Motts for Tots ad approximately 800 times.

The ad that I hate, that has me pretty much committed to buying store brand apple juice for the rest of my life, is the one where the insipid looking mother expresses her shock, yes, SHOCK to discover that when you mix your juice with water, it dilutes more than just the amount of sugar in the juice, but all of the ingredients. Including the vitamins.

How stupid do you think mothers are?

If I am giving my son 1/3 as much juice, I know I’m giving him 1/3 as much of every part of the juice. Including the vitamins.

Fortunately, he drinks a lot of watery juice, and eats a lot of other food, including other fruits and vegetables. I suspect that’s true for most of the children whose mothers and fathers buy your products. My son gets plenty of vitamins.

Now I have to admit, there’s a certain marketing genius to your having figured out how to sell half as much juice for the same amount of money. I’ve even bought the watered down juice boxes on occasion, because sometimes diluting my own juice turns out to be impractical — on road trips or while out and about at tourist destinations, for example.

But really. I still know that a single serving of hand-watered-down apple juice only has as much of the good part of the juice as the juice portion of the serving.

And I would prefer that if you want to sell me a product, you respect my intelligence.