Love lights the world...

You've probably already seen this, but if you haven't click below:






and then this one:






Great job, Honey Maid. Now I've got a lot of the same critiques of the first commercial as I did of the Cheerios commercial. Like, how much do you want to bet they had those paper rolling artists on standby, long before either of these went up? If you never read my Cheerios critique, click here.

But there are two things that Honey Maid did in the second commercial that Cheerios didn't. First, they gave a ratio of positive to negative comments. It is so easy to read the comment sections of blogs and think that the world is just filled with bloodthirsty, racist, homophobes. But the reality is, said comments are more likely to be written by a socially maladjusted 13-year-old than a federal judge. Not saying there aren't racist federal judges, just saying they don't spend their time writing youtube comments.

Second, and most importantly Honey Maid just basically gave a big F-you to the people that didn't agree with their point. Yes, they wrapped it in a nice little message about love and upcycling, but they doubled down on the TWO GAY DUDES CAN RAISE A BABY!! idea. Lots of people have a problem with that. However, instead of being a company that tries to be all things to all people in order to make as much money as humanly possible, Honey Maid is taking a stand.

Now, don't get me wrong--I don't have a problem with companies who want to stay out of everything because the only color they care about is green. That's called capitalism. I also don't have a problem with companies that take a stand even if it's something I don't personally agree with (See: Hobby Lobby).

What I do have a problem with is wishy washy corporations like A&E who suspend someone for a weekend until they do the calculations of all the money they're gonna lose if the whole Duck Dynasty family walks off the show, and then come up with some wack excuse about why they didn't cancel the show. See previous paragraph, if A&E had just kept their mouths shut, I could understand that. But I feel like what they did was the worst possible outcome, because it showed them to be lacking convictions while trying to appear as if they had some. Don't suspend the guy for a weekend, that's just offensive.

Got sidetracked for a bit there, forgive me.

So HoneyMaid is basically saying, You gotta problem with this?! Don't buy our cookies then!

I respect that, more than I respect the original commercial. The original commercial can be written off as a trend in multicultural advertising. The second one cannot. They burned some bridges with the follow up commercial and took a real risk.

Those of us who appreciate that should let them know by buying their products, and letting them know that we're buying (more of) their products because of this campaign.

Finally, I want to see a white family in a trailer park pitching me a product. Or anyone broke in general.* Because the whole point in advertising is to create a need. They make you think you can be like the people in the ad if you buy the product. Most of the time, the people in the ad are attractive and/or rich. In the HoneyMaid ad, they're saying buying their cookies will make you feel love. This is not true, and all savvy consumers should know that. But I want HoneyMaid (or some other corporation,) to show me that I might want to be like a white family in a trailer park, because they're happy and love each other. Show me that people that don't have a lot of money still have value and deserve to be put forth as some ideal on a tv screen. Because even more than race or sex or gender, the idea that you have to be of a certain economic class to be admired is an extremely pervasive idea in our culture.

*I know everyone that lives in a trailer park is not necessarily white nor broke. I'm just trying to make a point. If you were offended, let me know and we can talk about it.

Do you have any thoughts? If so, leave me a comment.


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