This came into my view thanks to @yonifreedhoff. It's a Funny or Die spoof of a Chipotle ad that Dr. Freedhoff set up as, "if you've seen that, you've got to see this." And I'm sure he's right. But I *haven't* seen the Chipotle ad, and I still say "you've got to see this."

So I was a guest last week at the annual two-day summit of the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood, and my acceptance of a press pass implied that I would write about my experiences. I guess I better get started!

For someone who regularly screeds (not a verb, but oughta be) about the evils of advertisers, I should have been all over leanwashingindex.com, an Austin-based reader-interactive site that evaluates marketers’ health claims.

One of the patently dishonest threads of the healthy food/processed food debate has been Big Food’s complaint that they can put healthy options on their menus, but they can’t make people buy them.

It’s a variant of its explanation of why kids’ menus only have hot dogs, fries, and other crap. “It’s all they’ll eat,” they complain. One defect of this strain is that it’s just not true — and besides, “I’m the daddy.”.

Another excerpt from the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity's f.a.c.t.s. report, which looks at food advertising directed at children:

McDonald’s and Burger King have pledged to improve food marketing to children. However, both restaurants increased their volume of TV advertising from 2007 to 2009. Preschoolers saw 21 percent more ads for McDonald’s and 9 percent more for Burger King, and children viewed 26 percent more ads for McDonald’s and 10 percent more for Burger King.

This is off my topics, but some things are just worth sharing, all by themselves. In this case, it's just visually appealing, but also crosses the intersection of art and technology, a neighborhood I particularly enjoy.

Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

A kerfuffle in Australia has arisen over an advocacy ad that likens abuse of food with abuse of heroin, and I like it. The tagline asks a question not unlike I've asked before: If we acknowledge that whole classes of food are junk, why do we eat it?

From the Australian Broadcasting Co. story:

Lawrence Yang of San Francisco is an information architecture nerd by day, an art nerd by night, according to his website. He scored a night coup with this one...

The Alliance for Climate Protection is out with another Reality ad about the utter dishonesty perpetrated by the coal industry every time it promotes the term "clean coal." This one has the added attraction of having been directed by Ethan and Joel Coen, creators of some of the funniest, darkest, most engrossing films ever (Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Blood Simple, Fargo, No Country for Old Men, etc.).