FOODStuff SA | Cheerios breakfast cereal ad creates vitriolic response

07 Jun 2013 Cheerios breakfast cereal ad creates vitriolic response

Posted at 08:28h in Food Marketing Innovation and NPD by admin 0 Comments

So it’s 2013, and people are still getting worked up about interracial couples in ads – in America! In late May, a seemingly benign television commercial over breakfast cereal, in this case the ubiquitous Cheerios, has generated something of a media tornado in America. No, it’s not about General Mills’ use of GM grains, salt or sugar to make its products. Rather, the uproar is over the composition of the impossibly warm and cuddly family that is portrayed.

As this ad begins, a beaming, dewy-eyed child asks her mother who is eating her breakfast at their kitchen table if Cheerios are good for the heart. Mom says yes; the girl takes a box of the cereal out of the kitchen; and then, in the next moment, we see a pile of Cheerios in the crook of dad’s left arm, covering where his heart is, all while he is taking a nap on the TV room couch. As he awakens, the commercial ends with the word “Love” on screen.

So what’s wrong with that? Well, in this idyllic suburban home, mom’s white, dad’s black and the daughter is a beautiful olive skin-toned, wavy-haired cherub. That’s what all the fuss is about. Hmm… is it Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever at the breakfast table?

Originally called CheeriOats, General Mills first introduced this breakfast staple in 1941. It changed the name to Cheerios four years later as a result of a trade dispute with the maker of Quaker Oats. Fortuitously and fortunately for General Mills, the new name it selected was a perfect, eponymous fit with the shape of those little crunchy oaten circles. As a result, this product is now the largest selling individual cereal brand in America, moving over 2.2 billion boxes in 2012. So, the stakes are really big here.

The commercial was first broadcast on Monday, 27 May and it then appeared on YouTube two days later. Within in a few days, the YouTube spot had been viewed by well over a million people.

Despite the ongoing furore, General Mills insists it stands by its commercial, made by advertising agency Saachi and Saachi. Meredith Tutterow, associate marketing director for Cheerios and Multigrain Cheerios at General Mills, said “absolutely not,” it would not withdraw the ad.

Tutterow added, “There are many kinds of families, and Cheerios just wants to celebrate them all.” And Lynne Collins, Saachi and Saachi’s spokeswoman said, “It is important for us to make sure the work reflects the people we’re trying to sell products to.”

Well, du-uh. No point in just marketing Cheerios to the owners of luxurious yachts, docked at Cannes or Antibes. That should be arguing for recognition by General Mills that there are now millions of interracial family members who eat breakfast just like everyone else – and it should be marketing to these people.

Nevertheless, in a matter of days, people posted thousands of vituperative comments on YouTube about the commercial, and a fair number of them were so overtly racist that General Mills felt it had little choice but to disable the comment function and then have all comments on the commercial scrubbed from the site.

However, it didn’t disable the thumbs-up/thumbs-down button – and, there, overall, positives were running nearly 10 times those of the thumbs-down variety. Those numbers, as well as the things being said in other online forums about the commercial, provoked a “We’re really gratified” from Tutterow.

Nevertheless, those widely reported negative remarks – studded with obvious racist language – have, not surprisingly, drawn lots of attention. The AdFreak blog part of Adweek.com ran its post on the ad with the title “It’s 2013, and People are Still Getting Worked Up About Interracial Couples in Ads.” Tutterow says about the controversy, “We’re a bit surprised it’s turned into a story.”

While this commercial is Cheerios’ first interracial “family” on television, it is certainly not the first time a major consumer brand has been touted using an interracial family…..