• by Erik Oster , July 19, 2023

With the July sun and heat here, it’s officially blueberry season, and a new series of berry-boosting ads takes a humorous approach to reminding viewers there’s many reasons to grab a pint or two at the grocery store.

Launched last week by the U.S. HIghbush Blueberry Council as part of its “Grab Boost of Blue” campaign, the ads parody familiar advertising tropes of the past and present to boast of the brilliant berries’ bevy of beneficent benefits.

(Highbush blueberries  are the commonly cultivated species of blueberry consumers are most familiar with seeing in stores, as opposed to the smaller lowbush blueberry species  sometimes commercially sold simply as “wild blueberries.")

The group teamed up with longtime agency partner Padilla for the tongue-in-cheek ads, which poke fun at advertising tropes such as the over-the-top, sun-soaked retro fun of “Blueberries at the Beach," and the hyper-masculine posturing of “Get Up and Go With Blueberries,” which ends with a surprise reveal about the source of its deep, deep voiceover (it's really the little boy sitting at his computer).

“With a natural, delicious little fruit like blueberries, we aren’t really competing with sugary snacks, energy drinks, or pharmaceuticals. But we are selling a healthier version of the boost those other products often claim in their ads,” Padilla Creative Director Paul Brink said in release. “So, we thought it would be a lot of fun to set blueberries loose in that sea of mood- and energy-boosting marketing tropes. The contrast of seeing something as simple and wholesome as blueberries in these noisy, contrived commercial genres made us all smile.”

The ads are running on connected TV channels such as Bravo, Food Network, HGTV, Lifetime, Nickolodeon, and WEtv.

The blue berries in question are big business. Since the establishment of the federal agriculture research and promotion program in 2000, the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council has helped grow North American production from 432.5 million pounds to some 1,234 million pounds last year.