Every couple of years, some marketing person gets an idea in their head that they just can’t let go of. Sometimes that idea never leaves their head and becomes a ‘what if’ for as long as they are in the profession. Other times the idea is immediately accepted as brilliant and put into nationwide campaigns without a second thought. Today, we are talking about a new advertising campaign from our friends at Totino’s. One that perhaps should have stayed a pipe dream, rather than something you’ll see on your TV, internet browser, and commuter train for the next 6-9 months. We are, of course, referring to their new ‘Got Depression?’ campaign.

Upon viewing one of the commercials for this campaign for the first time, I immediately got in touch with our contact at Totino’s to see if I could interview the person behind this new campaign. Unfortunately, the person was not taking interviews at that time, but our contact told me that I was more than welcome to stop by the office sometime to ask around and see what I could find.

Taking him up on this, we decided to drop in on them with some free bagels, the perfect way to scope out the office vibes. All they asked was “why aren’t these bagel bites instead? they’re far superior. So that route was out. However, we were able to stop a few people as they left the office on their lunch breaks in order to get their opinion on what was happening.

Kerry from accounting told us that he thought the whole thing was going to lose them a lot of money. “I just want to meet the guy, but he works in a different open concept area than me, so we don’t interact much. I mean, I’m depressed, who isn’t? But we don’t have to make a whole show about it. Personally, I am proud that our products help people out of a funk. I wish they respected that.”

“Oh yeah, that was this new hire. They introduced the idea during a pitch meeting and the CEO thought it was brilliant. Now they don’t even come into the office, they just work from home in their penthouse suite,” another bitter employee who refused to give us there name told us. “But that’s life, I guess.”

The last person we spoke from gave us a different story. “Yeah that was my idea. I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life and now that’s a commodity in the advertising world for some reason, I have no idea why. But yeah, that was me, not Brian. Don’t give him any more credit, he already gets enough.”

Ultimately, it’s up to you whether you want to eat Totino’s or not, but don’t let them think it’s because of any sort of mental health issue, it’s because you deserve it.