Nippon

It's been very arid lately. I bought a plastic bottle of green tea on my way to uni, finding this logo on it. This shows that the green tea is made from Japanese domestic tea leaves and the producer cooperates with a committee called Food Action Nippon (FAN) whose aim is to improve Japan's food self-sufficiency that is currently at the lowest level among developed nations.

Honestly I didn't know anything about FAN. What interested me about this logo was its use of the word, Nippon. Nippon and Nihon are the Japanese pronunciations for Japan. When I was in the UK I was once asked if there is a difference in use between Nippon and Nihon by my friend studying Japanese. Actually there seems to be no fixed rules for choosing one pronunciation over the other, which was the answer I got from the Internet and I gave to him then. However, I didn't tell him then but I've been wondering if Nippon, rather than Nihon, would be chosen more into slogans, cheering at international sporting events and the like because of its impact, and readiness of making rhythm along with other sounds (due to its inclusion of a stop sound [p] ). This logo may be just one of the examples.