IT'S GETTING CRAZY OUT THERE

             My friend Matt at WhatsGood showed me a TV ad this morning from Dunkin' Donuts.  Have you seen this?

             It opens with Dunkin' Donuts erecting a vendor tent at a farmers' market and then cuts to pretty pictures of produce like tomatoes and cucumbers and lettuce at the market.

             Then folks at the farmers' market try Dunkin' Donuts' new Beyond Sausage Sandwich, a completely plant based substitute and of course it gets rave reviews.

             I'm not sure I have language to describe how sleazy this is.  Talk about false advertising.  First, Dunkin' Donuts does not go to farmers' markets.  Second, they sure don't buy from farmers' markets.  Third, nothing about these fake meat sausages has anything to do with tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce at the farmers' markets.

             All fake meat is produced with industrial commodity crops headlined by either soybeans (Beyond Meat) or peas (Impossible Burger).  Nothing about this TV ad currently showing is true.  Nothing.

             And yet people look at the pictures, make the associations, and duplicitously fall into step like ducklings following mama.  It's outrageous, but video is so powerful; you can splice and edit to associate completely disparate things but because you see them in proximity you naturally assume they're related.

             Video now permeates our lives so much it makes me question anything I see.  It used to be if we saw it we usually believed it.  Now I almost have to assume that if I see it somebody must be trying to pull a fast one.  Sheesh.

             I nominate this Dunkin' Donuts ad for the prize of biggest lie of the year.  I think we should start an award, kind of like old Senator Proxmire's Golden Fleece Award a few years back.  The outrageous deception is only exceeded by the outrageous fact that so many people will totally buy into it.

             Have you eaten real sausage from real pasture-based pigs lately?