Folgers

If you thought Starbucks was uncouth to venture into the world of value meals, then wait until you hear its next supposed move. Ad Age is reporting that the struggling java chain is making plans to test soluble coffee in its stores.

Although Starbucks declined to comment on the launch, sources are saying plans to introduce the soluble coffee, to be called Via, will be announced next week. It could be sold in stand-alone cafés as early as next month. The company has reportedly been working on the instant product for years, hoping to market Via as a replica of Starbucks's store-bought brew.

It may seem out of place for a premium coffee chain like Starbucks to be competing with the likes of Folgers and Sanka, but considering the chain's desperate moves to revive dismal sales, I'm not entirely surprised. Do you see this as a smart move during a tough economy? Would you give Via a try?

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If a great commercial could be considered a work of art, then the following Folgers ad from a couple years ago is a masterpiece. This ad depicts exhausted people in a land of gray who wake up to the sight and sound of singing freaks in yellow spandex. And then there's the tagline, "Wake up, you sleepy head/You can sleep when you are dead"? Deep, man, deep.

Back in the '50s, well-intentioned housewives were scolded and shunned for pouring their husbands distasteful cups of coffee. In a day and age when the worth of a woman was judged solely on her beauty and homemaking skills, a bad cup of java warranted a good amount of verbal abuse. If Folgers was the secret weapon to fend off a hubby's ungrateful rebuke, no wonder they came to call it "the best part of waking up." In a perfect world, "the best part of waking up" would've been this lady hurling the hot cup of coffee at her husband. With a little creamer to boot. (For more sexist fun with Folgers, click here.)

Harvey here is lucky I don't have a time machine that can catapult me forty years backwards in time to hit him upside his douchebag head. In this vintage Folger's ad, Harvey lets his wife have it for making him a sub-par cup of coffee, comparing her coffee-making skills — unfavorably — to the ladies back at the office. What would you say to Harvey if you could?

Instant coffee that "tastes as good as fresh-perked"? I'm not buying it. Just as I'm not buying the fact that housewives of the 1950s really sat around worrying about ways to improve the taste of their husband's coffee. If that were the case, then why buy "instant" (as opposed to fresh brewed) coffee in the first place? Cuz frankly, those women didn't have the time to put up with this bullsh*t. That's why.

Or perhaps the most deranged? In this Folgers commercial, exhausted people in a land of gray wake up to the sight and sound of singing freaks in yellow spandex. Look, we knew caffeine was a drug--but is Folgers now spiking their coffee with ecstasy and acid, too? Seriously, though, is there a better tagline than "Wake up, you sleepy head/You can sleep when you are dead"? I think not.