A&W commercial: Banking on the Stupidity of the People.

Advertising the use of 100% U.S. products has been a long-time, and occasionally abused, tradition for companies marketing in America. From U.S. car makers telling us that buying a Honda is somehow unpatriotic to Walmart advertising, in vague post-9/11 rhetoric with flags waving in the background, that shopping elsewhere may help the terrorists.

But A&W may have trumped them all.

In their new ad, an A&W loyalist sits next to Ronald McDonald and expresses his extreme disappointment that McDonald's uses New Zealand beef in their burgers while telling him A&W uses 100% U.S. beef in their PapaBurger.

It's a fairly new marketing device, used in the last ten years, where apparently our relationship with various companies/stores/restaurants can be something akin to a love affair, calling forth emotions usually reserved for intense love connections.

Playing on the recent fears of tainted pet food and toothpaste for China, A&W caters to the stupid by using loads of innuendo and insinuation - and most importantly plausible deniability - by saying McDonald's use of New Zealand beef betrays the very notion of 'being American'.

On the health issues of New Zealand beef, it is one of the least likely to be tainted with Mad Cow Disease, according to the United Nations. Not one reported case. Also, New Zealand beef is and has always been 100% organic, eliminating any threat related to hormonal 'frankenburger' concerns.

And curiously, A&W, a subsidiary of Yumi Brands, the people who bring you KFC, TacoBell and Long John Silver's, was recently sued and lost for their rampant cruel and unusual punishment in the killing of chickens for use in their products (in this case, PETA got it right).

But the best part is the plausible deniability. The ad makes no qualifying claims in association with the use of New Zealand beef, just that it apparently betrays the American consciousness, accompanied by the use of copious amounts of American flags and patriotic music in one form or another. The conclusion is there for only the viewer to draw. But with the timing with the pet food and toothpaste scare, the allusion is palpable.

And unbelievably pathetic.