Godiva only knows

I usually despise when luxury brands do traditional mass market advertising. I find that it dilutes the brand message. Then I chanced upon this (ahem) sweet series of promotional posters for Godiva chocolates. 

While I still don't subscribe to advertising purely for the sake of advertising, this series of posters (again, damn near works of art unto themselves) make much more sense as posters, possibly for display in malls and specialty shop promenades. 

As a professional creative, I try to always encourage my kids to think outside the box (of chocolates). I think this is a fantastic example of how to do just that.  

This campaign is imaginative, unique and, in my eyes, highly successful. Hard to find all of those in one body of work–I believe this is one of those campaigns. What do you think?

Enjoy.

(Suddenly, I'm overcome with a desire for chocolate and caramel.) 

Discourteous Courtesy

Recently, I have committed–albeit only partially–to living a healthier lifestyle and getting into better shape. Occasionally though, I will 'back-pedal' and in a moment of weakness/food lust/craving, I will make some not-so-healthy food choices. In short, I resort to junk food. Nothing as vile as hot-fudge sundaes or an entire 1500 calories breakfast burrito (though, that sounds pretty darn good right now), but a guilty little pleasure of a breakfast sandwich can often do the trick nicely. 

Enter: the Jack-In-The-Box drive through

Now for those blissfully unaware, especially any of my east-coast cronies, Jack-In-The-Box is a lot like Hardee's on the East Coast. Sort of a Breakfast and lunch fast food hub open pretty much always. 

Recently, when grabbing a totally sinful breakfast 'sangwhich' on my way to work, I was asked a very serious question by the cashier/junk food pimp lady with the paper hat on:

"How was your visit with us today?"

What? The question left me stunned. I had no response as I sat dumbfounded–frozen–by this ridiculous question. How was my "visit"? You mean my shamefully indulgent, semi-guilt-ridden effort to exchange hard-earned cash for this gooey, cheesy, bacon-smothered awesomeness? If I were to answer truthfully, my visit was:

• Hopelessly indulgent

• Nirvana-esque

• Emotionally polarizing 

• Regretfully ecstatic

• Embarrassingly euphoric 

All of these hover dangerously close to an unpleasant truth, though I believe all I could muster at the moment was an emphatic; "uh.. good." 

In the future, if this is indeed how the mood engineers at the Jack-In-The-Box corporate experiential refinement division are planning to mold my "visits" from here on, I will be better prepared to respond to their false, yet strangely gratifying attempts at 'feel-good' perkiness as I grab my bag of grease.

I wonder what Wendy's morning pleasantries are like? 

More Health. Less Care.

Maybe the fix to our health care issues is making good nutrition sound as good as a third helping. 

A good friend of mine–and fellow blogger–recently blogged about health and nutrition and that seemed ironic to me given the fact that; (A) I work for one the world's fastest growing whole body health and nutritional cleanse companies and (B) that I had never blogged on this topic before.

I know what you might be thinking.

'Great, here comes another lecture about health and nutrition.' Rest easy, dear reader, I am far from qualified (or vindicated) to offer health advice to anyone. Most of my life I have been overweight. At 6' 2" I once tipped the scales at 339 lbs (years ago). In all fairness, that was as much a byproduct of stress, allergies and a genetic pre-disposition to gain weight (see Protein-S and Protein-C deficiency). But mostly, it was a fondness for what I like to call "creamy, yummy things." 

Now I won't lecture here (lord knows I do enough of that for my kids) but we all know the run down... eat less, exercise more. Eat more green, eat less brown. I trust a cow over a scientist when it comes to nutrition. As I have learned over the years, seeing time and again... you can be 60 pounds over weight (the classification for obesity is actually 40 lbs or more over your pre-determined weight for height and age). You can lose that 60 lbs by eating properly, getting a decent night's rest and drinking plenty of water.

If you chose to work out, please note that you have to feed your body the proper levels of carbs, fats, minerals and a considerable influx of protein. Protein not only helps you build muscle, but when its the right type and amount, it will help you lose weight. 

The recent collapse of snack food giant Hostess foods was a wake up call for me. No, no not like what you think, I didn't suddenly get healthier because the ding-dong supply has dwindled (as God is my witness, there are still quite a few of THEM in the world) but I realized I haven't eaten one of those god-awful things in, like, forever. What's more, I didn't miss them. I mean there wasn't an ounce of anything remotely resembling food in those things anyway. At best, it was a selection of chemically and scientifically concocted compounds that would fool your system's digestive process.

In America, we thrive on the taste, the gratification of the experience and the near erotic fascination with food–with the use of terms like "sensual", "mouth-watering" and "irresistible", we often sound like we're talking about porn than food. Who doesn't see those ads with a luscious young woman slowly sucking chocolate or chips off her fingers (gulp!) –kids, cover your eyes... oh, to late for my house.

Alright Arthur, get to your point or get to the corner

Okay, so anyway, to me it's evident that to be healthy means to have a healthy relationship with food. You can exercise all you want but if you are undressing that naughty bag of salty carbs with your eyes, you might as well indulge. Otherwise, we all need to re-program how we think about food. It can be tasty, but it is FIRST about sustenance and everything else second.

Putting food in it's place will make our overburdened healthcare system sigh–at east for a moment. And the next time you go for that bag of cookies, force a detour and go for the apple instead. Your heart will appreciate the extra love... and may reward you with the beating of your life.