Avocado Advertising

I  remember the good old days when Angie Dickinson told everyone how much she loved avocados. The message was clear.

Last weekend the "Avocados from Mexico" people spent 4.5 million dollars on a 30 second Superbowl spot. And the millions were just for the air time - who knows what the production costs were. Strangely the PR releases I saw about the ad feature a polar bear with a sombrero. It was all lost on me but I hope they reached their target audience and avocado consumption goes through the roof. 

I checked out their site for recipes, out of curiosity. They're full of errors.....an example below. After spending all that money on the campaign, I was surprised. Almost every recipe has gibberish for ingredient amounts. I actually hope nobody goes looking for recipes on the site; they are so bad and so careless. Typos, misformatting and errors abound. 

Marketing people will spend so much time and energy on an ad campaign like this and neglect to do the basics with recipes.  Do they forget what they're selling?? Here's one of their guac recipes - 5 star rated Botanero Guacamole. I guess the person(s) who rated it understood what "2 g vegetable oil roots and ends discarded" and how much "1/2 kosher salt" is.  

In case you're interested, here's information on

Japanese Style Peanuts

INGREDIENTS

• 2 guajillo chiles stemmed, seeded and sliced in 1/4-inch rings
• 8 g scallions roots and ends discarded, white and light green parts sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 2 g vegetable oil roots and ends discarded, white and light green parts sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 2 g sesame seeds roots and ends discarded, white and light green parts sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
• 3 g avocados ripe, halved, pitted, meat scooped out and diced
• 2 lime juice freshly squeezed
• 1/2 kosher salt or sea salt, or to taste
• 1 pineapple peeled, cored and diced
• 1 cup jcama peeled and diced
• 1/2 cup peanuts Japanese-style*, or any coated or crunchy peanuts of your choice

DIRECTIONS

1. "Set a medium-sized skillet over medium-low heat. Pour in the oil and let it heat for 1 to 2 minutes.
2. Once it is hot, add the guajillo chiles and let them cook gently, for about 2 minutes, stirring constantly until they look a bit crisp and their color has changed.
3. Add the scallions, mix with the chiles and the by now flavored oil, and cook for another couple minutes, until the scallions begin to wilt. Incorporate the sesame seeds, mix again, and cook for another couple minutes until seeds have begun to brown lightly.
4. Turn off the heat and scrape into a small bowl.
5. In a medium mixing bowl, add the avocado, lime juice and salt, and gently mash and mix with a fork. Incorporate the pineapple, jcama and Japanese-style peanuts.
6. Scrape the avocado mix onto a serving bowl and spoon the guajillo chile, scallion and sesame seed mixture all over the top. "