Adverganza has posted an item today about this new Wendy’s spot, in which office workers take hits from a helium canister, then float to the ceiling, bloated and complaining in their high-pitched helium voices. (“Filling up with just anything? That’s wrong,” explains the voiceover.) Critics say the ad sends the wrong message to kids about inhalants, as opposed to your typical Wendy’s ad, which simply sends the wrong message to kids about nutrition. “Kids get the idea that it’s OK to put a gas in your body,” says a rep at the National Inhalant Prevention Council. While not explicitly defending the practice of giving people gas, Wendy’s nonetheless stands by the commercial, saying it clearly shows “a situation that is not real, because people don’t float on the ceiling.”

—Posted by Tim Nudd