• by Carrie Cummings , October 5, 2011

Feeding America Event
The Plaza Hotel, Grand Ballroom
Oct. 3, 2011 

Kicking Advertising Week off at a luncheon at the Plaza's Grand Ballroom isn't too shabby, especially when the wine starts flowing at 11 a.m. (although I'm sad to report that no one was drinking it, not even this lush reporter who showed up sauced on codeine and allergy meds). Gayle Taryn does PR for the Advertising Club of NY and always throws great events. When I finally trick a man into marrying me and letting me spend all his money, I'm calling Gayle to have her plan the wedding.

So the event was for Feeding America, a great organization all about preventing and putting an end to hunger. They get big-time celebs to do PSAs portraying real situations to raise awareness (think Abigail Breslin and Matt Damon). Enter: The AD Club's Stars of Madison Avenue Honors Feeding America luncheon. So who are these "Stars of Madison Avenue"? If I had read the releases before showing up at the event, I would have known that the stars were AOL, Kraft, The Nielsen Company, Clear Channel Communications and... Walmart. I love the other companies and have surprisingly worked with them all in the past year. But Walmart? Come on, AD Club! You can't expect me to believe that Walmart cares about hungry people. That's a stretch. I won't go off on a Northeast Liberal rant, but know it's there. Moving on...

WCBS-TV's "Fresh Grocer," Tony Tantillo, hosted the event. He was fun and seemed very down-to-earth and passionate about food, helping to wake up the groggy Monday mid-morning crowd. I was sitting at my gorgeous table next to Beth Linton who had just flown in from Minneapolis for the event. She is an account supervisor at McCann and we both agreed that the food was wonderful.

The luncheon was  followed by the program, where the new PSA commercials from the "Real Stories" campaign featuring Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin were debuted. I hope you guys can check them out soon - and all of Advertising Week will be as fun as the Feeding America event.

Stay tuned for more coverage! Email ALL of your party invites to carrie@mediapost.com.

Thanks to Ric Kallaher for the pictures.