Food brands celebrate our awful year with advertisements
“Yearning for the days when the world’s biggest problem was that Reese’s wasn’t stuffed with pretzels,” reads a tweet by Reese’s, advertising the brand’s new Big Cups with Pretzels. Business Insider reports a new trend of food brands acknowledging the hellishness of the year without focusing specifically on Covid-19. Early on in the pandemic, brands like Budweiser and McDonald’s addressed the virus directly in ads celebrating first responders. But now brands like Reese’s are harping on the state of the world more broadly in advertisements, and more casually in tweets. Take, for example, Burger King, which tweeted, “brb, wrapping up 2020 #WrapUp2020” earlier this summer. Or Natural Lights’ offering of a “mobile dorm” for when classes go remote. Business Insider also notes that Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts released pumpkin-flavored drinks early this year, to give desperate customers a drink to look forward to.
