Mixed Race Studies

Tired of Tradition, Honey Maid’s Marketing Chief Chose to Put the Spotlight on Modern Families

Adweek
2015-10-18

T.L. Stanley

Gary Osifchin, Honey Maid portfolio lead, Mondelez Photo: Sasha Maslov

Adweek’s 2015 Brand Genius winner for CPG/food

It always seemed strange to Gary Osifchin that the characters in traditional advertising were so, well, traditional. “There was the Caucasian female lead, with the French manicure,” Osifchin says, “or the black guy in a secondary role only.”

TV spots had been this way for years, but Osifchin recognized a problem with it. “How,” he asks, “can consumers connect with [your brand] if that’s all you’re showing?”

That nagging question led Honey Maid and its agency Droga5 to break with decades of standard practice. In 2014, packaged foods giant Mondelēz sought to overhaul Honey Maid, a household name and a staple in American pantries. Getting consumers to take a fresh look at a 90-year-old brand of graham crackers would require a truly different approach.

So, it went in search of 21st century families—gay, single-parent, mixed-race and immigrant, for example. There were no actors, just regular people shot in a documentary-style for TV spots, digital shorts and other content under the tagline “This is wholesome.”…

Read the entire article here.

Diversity reaches new levels in Honey Maid ads

USA Today
2014-03-10

Bruce Horovitz, Marketing Reporter

Honey Maid is the latest brand to launch an ad campaign featuring interracial, gay families.  USA TODAY

America’s biggest brands are at an advertising crossroads, and the new diversity that their ads project has suddenly emerged as one of society’s most visual — if not incendiary — flash points.

And it’s about to explode.

It began with several recent, high-profile diverse TV spots from two multibillion-dollar brands: a Cheerios spot staring a biracial girl with white mom and black dad; and a Coca-Cola spot featuring minorities singing America the Beautiful in their native languages. Both went viral and left trails of social media venom in their wake.

On Monday, Honey Maid will jump on the diversity bandwagon with a far-reaching campaign by the 90-year-old graham cracker brand that raises the use of diversity in mainstream ads to a whole new level.

In one 30-second Honey Maid ad, viewers will see everything from a same-sex couple bottle-feeding their son to an interracial couple and their three kids holding hands. The ad also features a Hispanic mother and an African-American father with their three mixed-race children. And there’s even a father covered in body tattoos. This is not some shockvertisement for Benetton. It’s an ad for one of America’s oldest and most familiar brands. The people in it are not actors, but real families. The message of the ad: These are wholesome families enjoying wholesome snacks…

Read the entire article here.