Framing Purity and Nature: A Multimodal Ecolinguistics Study of Packaged Milk Advertising

Abstract

This study looks at how packaged milk advertisements in Pakistan create meaning through their visuals and language, and examines the environmental ideas hidden within them. Using Kress and van Leeuwen's (2006) multimodal framework and Stibbe's (2015) ecolinguistics framework, the study analyses advertisements from three leading Pakistani milk brands, including  Olper's, Nestlé Milkpak, and Haleeb. The findings show that all three brands use similar strategies: the product is shown much larger than the natural elements around it, cattle or nature are used to make viewers feel like passive observers, and the layout places the "ideal" branded product above the "real" natural origins of milk. In terms of ecolinguistics, all three ads use greenwashing and treat nature as existing only to serve human needs. They also repeat a "Drink = Life" metaphor and leave out any mention of labour, factory processing, or carbon emissions. The main difference between brands is in how they engage the viewer: Haleeb uses a person looking directly at the camera to build a personal, identity-based appeal, while Olper's and Milkpak rely more on nature imagery to build trust. The study concludes that this kind of greenwashing is not unique to one brand but is a shared pattern across the industry, and shows that combining multimodal and ecolinguistic analysis is an effective way to reveal how food advertising makes industrial products look natural while hiding their real environmental and labour costs.