Food Prices Skyrocket in Hunger PSA

We watched this black and white PSA filled with disbelief as images of deserted grocery stores selling apples for $11/lb, cans of chicken noodle soup for $22.78/ea and ground beef for $52.49.lb faded in and out. We wondered is this a post apocalyptic world movie trailer? Then it brightens, a woman returns a loaf of bread to the shelf and a tagline reads, "Imagine a world where food was too expensive. For 36 million Americans, it is."

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IZEAfest Delivers Drama, Scares, Learning, Ice, Pizza

Oh the salacious things we could tell you about IZEAfest which occurred this past weekend in Orlando. But we're not going to because you don't read Adrants for that stuff, right? You read it for the compelling and in-depth advertising news we provide. Wait, what? Did we just write that sentence? Have we turned into Advertising Age?

Hell no but we're not the industry's giant asshole either. Suffice to say there was puking, a high profile Twitter account hijacking, a lost iPhone debacle, a Twitter cat fight, a Zuckerberg/Lacy-style session trashing, a theme park line cutting incident and an act of contrition which was, well, less than contrite. But none of this is important. What's important is IZEAfest held a wonderful conference at which there were wonderfully informative speakers, wonderful attendees, wonderfully planned social events and a a chance to learn a lot about how advertising isn't the same advertising it once was.

Upon arrival Thursday, the Renaissance Hotel pool was the place to be. Julia Roy and Sarah Evans were among the many drinking in the sun before a few hundred of us hopped on some buses for a ride across the state to Busch Gardens where the park was holding its annual Howl-O-Scream event. Just imagine an entire theme park turned into one gigantic scare zone and you have Howl-O-Scream.

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Commerce Parades as Entertainment in Kettle Commercial

Sometimes you need to call a spade a spade. No wait, you should call a spade a spade all the time. Especially in an industry filled with puffery, bent truths, white, lies and a general disdain for just telling people to "buy my shit." Which is why this Australian Kettle Chips commercial from Sydney-based Bulldozer is so wittiliciuously refreshing.

Surrounded by a bevy of babes who fulfill the sex sells role, a smarmy dude dryly calls out the buffoonery that occurs in most advertising which he refers to as "commerce parading as entertainment."

Agency Moves to New Location With Michael Bay Flair

This is both funny and lame at the same time. But, because it's an agency pimping itself, all can be forgiven because, ya know, agencies are funny and lame at the same time. To celebrate its move from some crappy warehouse location to sweet downtown San Franciso digs, Bars + Tone created a Michael Bay-style video complete with dramatic music, lots of explosions, and self -important men dressed in black peering into the camera like David Caruso does so well on CSI Miami.

Don't you love this business?

FX Goes Mad With Product Placement

For a hefty dose of product placement, all one has to do this week is check out a recent episode of FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia in which Coors Light and Dave and Busters get heavily pimped. No wait, they are salaciously slathered upon us in a way that makes one want to barf! Of course, that could have been the entire point of it. all. Anyway, here it is.

Starbucks Trashes Brand With VIA

We're already over a week late on this but...Starbucks recently launched its new VIA product yesterday. For those of you living in a coffee vacuum VIA is Starbucks' answer to the one shot coffee pod trend in home brewing. The brand is touting the offering as being so good "you won't be able to tell the difference between Starbucks VIA and our brewed coffee."

Um what? Isn't this completely counter to the brand Starbucks? Hello? Starbucks? We visit your stores for the highest quality brewed coffee. We happily pay a little extra for your unique ability to make that great cup of coffee a cup we CAN'T get elsewhere. Your outstanding personal service (most of the time). And sometimes the ambiance. We WANT to taste the difference.

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