The free market works.

It’s been less than a week since chicken chain KFC offered to pay for the repair of potholes in some cities so long as they could advertise over the patch, and there’s already a bidding war for the job. PETA has offered to pay double what KFC has, so long as they can stencil in their own, anti-KFC, advertisement, pictured below.

It should say “KFC Tortures Delicious Animals”, amirite?

Now, I’ve talked about how completely batshit insane PETA is before, but their ideology doesn’t matter this time, my point remains the same. This is just a fantastic example of how the free market solves problems without government intervention. Not even a week after a private company offers to do something that most people think only government can do (namely: fix the streets), another corporate sponsor offers to pay double for the same thing. Both corporate sponsors have selfish reasons for doing what they’re doing, and both actions will have a positive outcome for society at large. It will fix city streets and cost taxpayers nothing.

The potential for this kind of thing is endless, and it’s because of the magic of advertising. Let’s hope it catches on.

Up until this afternoon, I was totally unaware that the cereal eating habits of society change during the colder parts of the year. It makes perfect sense though; apparently, cold cereal sales drop off during the winter months as people switch to hot breakfasts like oatmeal and farina.

In an attempt to keep customers eating their daily bowl of cold corn flakes during the autumn months leading up to winter, ad agency JWT London has created this “ambient” campaign for Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut CornFlakes. They enlisted the pavement artist Jon Hicks to draw large Kellogg’s bowls around London sidewalks, and sweep the autumn leaves into them to emulate the cornflakes. Clever stuff. Check out some pictures of Jon Hicks working: