A spokesperson for 13M restaurant employees

From time to time, the National Restaurant Association and its state affiliates have waged marketing campaigns to encourage dining out. If the groups are considering a similar drive during these trying times, they should save their money and just lift a snippet from a video aired by a panelist at the association’s just-completed convention in Chicago. All they’d have to do is run the clip with a caption reading, “This is the person you’d be helping.” 

The video was run by Burgerville, a 40-unit fast-food chain, during an educational session on the top-line benefits of pursuing sustainability. The segment featured an employee identified as a “team member,” who earnestly explains how she looks up to the managers who have been her bosses and tries to model her life after theirs.  

“I didn’t really have that when I was growing up,” she says to the camera. 

Now, she says, she has her own house and some money together.  

I really, really doubt that she was reading off a teleprompter.   

Let Madison Ave. stick with ads for breakfast cereal and car insurance. The restaurant industry has stumbled on an eloquent spokeswoman who can articulate its genuine economic importance. All it needs to do is remind consumers that patronizing restaurants helps far more people than just the stockholders of McDonald’s and Darden.