Proportions in Advertising

Brita manufactures and sells water filtration devices. Bottled water companies sell water around the globe. These two entities are trying to get you to spend your money on their products. Watch the Brita commercial and use the transcript below to think about the use of proportions in this commercial. The questions following the transcript will be divided into sections that broaden in perspective as we progress down the page.

Transcript of 300 to 1.

“Last year, the U.S. alone used over thirty-nine billion plastic bottles of water. That’s enough to stretch around the earth over one hundred and ninety times. Each Brita filter can take up to three hundred of those bottles out of the equation. It’s a small step, that can make a big difference.”

Questions using only information given in the commercial:

From the information given in the commercial, write a few questions of your own that you would use proportions/ratios to solve (at least two questions). An example is below.

Example:

How many Brita filters would be needed to replace all the water bottles used in the U.S.?

Question 1

Question 2

Bonus Question

Questions using conversions from the commercial.

Write a few questions that can use information from the commercial, but also additional information to use proportions/ratios to solve. Only make one change. Two examples below:

Example:

How many bottles of water are purchased in the U.S. per person?

If we laid the bottles end-to-end, how long would the bottles be in miles?

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Challenge questions for you to solve.

Choose two questions from those listed below and solve them. You may have to look up information to solve. Show your work and any additional information used.

1.  If every person in the world used the same number of water bottles as the U.S., how many bottles of water would we produce each year?

2.  What weighs more, 39 billion water bottles or the equivalent number of Brita filters?

  1. Follow up question: Would this knowledge convince you to purchase Brita filters instead of plastic water bottles?

3.  How many water bottles stacked end-to-end would it take to reach the Earth’s moon?

4.  What is the difference in price for the average U.S. citizen to purchase a year’s worth of water bottles as compared to a year’s worth of Brita filters?

  1. Follow up: If you could not drink your tap water, would you rather pay for bottled water or Brita filters?