Mushrooms…in Times Square?

That’s right. Mushrooms are storming the streets of New York City to tell millions of people how easy and delicious it is to simply add sautéed mushrooms every day, every way. Okay, maybe “storming the streets” is a bit of an exaggeration, but the Mushroom Council has its first ever digital advertisements running on the 520-square foot CBS “Super Screen” in the heart of Times Square.

The ads are 15-seconds long and will run twice an hour from March through mid-July.  If you’re familiar with New York City, the CBS “Super Screen” is one of the focal billboards showing news and advertisements on a TV screen right by Military Island. The Mushroom Council typically only conducts in-store advertising, so this is a new and exciting thrill for the American mushroom growers to see mushrooms being promoted on the “big screen” in a high-traffic area with more than 450 million people passing through annually.

While brainstorming ideas for the ads, we were having a lot of fun thinking of all the different ways you can add sautéed mushrooms to everyday dishes. From the traditional American cuisines, such as chicken, fish, burgers, soup and pasta, to Asian-inspired dishes like lettuce wraps and Mexican flavors like quesadillas and tacos-it was hard to choose the recipes to showcase!

Mushrooms are such a delicious way to add nutrients for so few calories and no fat, it seems like there is no dish that can’t be enhanced – even if it’s just the kids mac ‘n’ cheese – by tossing in a few mushrooms.  We can even get carried away and add mushrooms in our dessert. True story: at the annual Mushroom Festival held at the mushroom capital of the world, Kennett Square, PA, they serve mushroom ice cream!  While it’s not for the faint of heart, our motto is don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.

In case you can’t make it to New York by July, click here to see the final cut of our first mushroom ad running live in Times Square.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.