I live in London. This probably doesn’t interest you, unless you’re a hitman trying to narrow down my location (I’m talking to you, Maurice), but it means that I often take the London Underground. Now, on the aforementioned public transit system, there are certain adverts that you don’t get anywhere else. What I want to talk to you about today is a particular company whose ads I’ve been seeing for a while now: Vitabiotics.
Specifically, I want to talk about why they are clearly a fictional evil corporation.
If the reasons aren’t obvious from the above image, allow me to make my case clearer by comparing them to two of the best examples of an evil fictional corporation (or EFC). Namely Cyberdyne Systems from the Terminator franchise and Omni Consumer Products from Robocop.
EFC names tend to be vague almost to the point of meaninglessness. If they have any actual name in them at all, it will be before the word “Corporation” or “Industries”, and the name will be that of a main character who will turn out, eventually, to be evil. Examples include LexCorp from Superman or Veidt Industries from Watchmen. More often, however, they will take Greek or Latin pre- and suffixes that hint at what the company makes and just stick them all together, especially if they want to be an evil and faceless corporate entity.
Real companies tend to be quite clear on their context: BP began as British Petroleum, which does pretty much what it says on the tin; Compass Group use a real word and, moreover, one that hints at their global scope; and the Royal Bank of Scotland is equally clear on its origins. Because these companies all have real origins, they tend to reference them in the name, whereas an EFC needs to be as vague as possible in case anyone catches a whiff of satire and needs to sue.
Classic EFC. We have the prefix “Cyber” which, despite not turning up until the word “cybernetics” came along in 1948 (thanks Wikipedia!), it’s still a nicely vague-yet-meaningful half word that fits in nicely with the computer theme. As for dyne? A unit of power, from the Greek word “dynamis”. Boom! EFC name slam dunk: vague, thematic, and Greek.
Omni Consumer Products – as beautifully simple as it is utterly meaningless. “Omni” is the Latin prefix meaning “everything”, while “consumer products” is anything that might conceivably be bought by anyone. It allows an all-encompassing scope that is at once convenient from a narrative point of view and faintly sinister in its omnipresence (see!). It’s a company that could be involved in making anything. Even robot policemen.
What we have here is a combination of “vita”, which is Latin for “life”, and “bios”, which is Greek for… um, “life”. Oh, and they added “tics” on the end there to make it clear its an area of science like cybernetics, genetics or statistics (which are boring, but still kind of science a bit I guess.) Hang on, so they’ve got the same word in both Latin and Greek? And that word is “life”, which is both extremely general and a little bit scary for a company to claim as its domain? And there is no other word or meaning to the name? Thats… really sinister.
A good EFC slogan should be, as always, vague. It should, at first glance, be a positive message, but one that gets more an more sinister with every consideration, such as the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s slogan from the Alien franchise: “Building better worlds”.
Here, however, I must make a confession: Cyberdyne and OCP are both real companies. The former is a Japanese technology firm and the latter a company that specialises in taking fictional products and making them real. This doesn’t matter overmuch, as this whole article is about the blending of the fictional and the real, but in both cases, the only corporate slogans I could find were those of the real companies: “The leading edge in cybernetics” and “The future of yesterday, today”, respectively.
Both quite respectable slogans for an EFC, but Vitabiotics puts them to shame.
“Where nature meets science”
Yay! Nature is brilliant because it has trees and birds and stuff, while science is brilliant because it has lasers and microscopes and stuff. What could possibly go wrong if we mix them together?
See, what we all forget is that there’s loads of horrible things in nature, like flesh-eating diseases, or earthquakes, or that creepy way sloths move when they’re on the ground. And science has the unrivalled potential to make them so much worse. Like that time that they took bird flu and made it better at infecting everyone. The point where nature meets science is a pretty scary one, as befits a (not so) secretly evil company.
There’s no real right or wrong when it comes to EFC logos, but bold shapes and stark colours are good, so lets have a look.
Bold use of the red on black, straight lines forming some stark, geometric shapes that mean nothing. Good call, Cyberdyne.
The company initials, OCP, nested into each other. Yet all the friendly curves are hardened into edges which imply both a futuristic, high-tech aspect and a cold inhumanity that really gives it that sense of impersonal malice. The fact that they’re all sort of eating each other is a nice touch too.
That’s… That’s a red omega symbol. Omega as in the end. Of everything. And red as in danger. The most alarming symbol combined the most alarming colour. There is literally no positive association I can come up with for a red omega. Especially when we remember the name is all about life, then the fact that the logo is all about endings and danger becomes even more terrifying. Also, where do I know the name Omega Red from?
Vitabiotics, if you’re reading this, please be aware that you share your logo with a Soviet supervillain. That’s bad. Even Wolverine couldn’t destroy Omega Red, and he’s Wolverine. That’s how bad we’re talking here. If you want anyone to be surprised when you finally reveal your dastardly plans, you need a less overtly evil logo.
Finally, an EFC needs its products, it need to make something that it can use to its ultimate (evil) purpose. Usually it’s something that it can pass off as being to the benefit of humanity, but will actually end up making things a whole lot worse. As usual, vagueness the key.
Skynet – a networked military computer program that gains sentience. The name is nonspecific, yet has enough meaning to be ominous. The task is ostensibly useful and in the cause of efficiency, but accidentally puts too much power into the hands of an unfeeling murder machine. It’s a classic EFC product.
They make everything, which is concerning in and of itself. But in the context of the films, they restrict themselves mainly to mechanized law enforcement, in the form of ED-209, which is a military killbot (again) which they just kind of want to let loose on the streets of Detroit, and Robocop, who’s awesome, and ends up wrecking their stuff a bit because he was far more awesome than they intended. Basically, OCP aren’t quite good enough at being evil for it not to bite them in the ass.
Let me start by saying that Vitabiotics does not, to my knowledge, make killbots. They make medicines and vitamin supplements like this one:
Hold on. “Perfectil”? That’s a wee bit vague. What’s in it? Why will it make our skin, hair and nails so perfect? I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with a product that sounds quite that fake. Let’s see another.
Wellman. Well man. You want to be a well man, right? Then take this product, it’ll fill you with health and vitality! How could anything with such a life affirming name be bad? After all, Vitabiotics is all about life.
And they’re after our blood, too! The “fero” bit implying iron blood. I know iron’s an important part of red blood cells, but there must be a better way to convey that. There comes a point where you can no longer simply pass it off as poor marketing, and it become undeniable proof of evil.
So there you have it
Vitabiotics are not simply sinister, they are so sinister that it is impossible for them not to be fictional. There are two possible outcomes to this discovery: the first is that it turns out they’re not real and I win some sort of lovely prize for figuring it out; the second is that they are actually real, in which case they will no doubt release the bioweapon that ends humanity.
And when you and I, dear reader, are crouched in a foxhole, trying to avoid the marauding mutant hordes of “Wellmen” emblazoned with the symbol of the red omega, I shall present you with a printout of this article (for the internet will long since be gone). So that as they take me and drain my rich red blood to feast on its iron, my final words to you shall simply be “Called it.”