A month ago, the graham cracker brand Honey Maid launched a new program that aimed to redefine “wholesome” by telling the stories of interracial, single-parent and gay families. The idea was to align the 90-year-old Honey Maid with a modern yet steadfast narrative on what makes for wholesome.
Families might’ve have changed, Honey Maid suggests. But “wholesome” — with both its moral and health connotations — never will.
Here’s the original video produced by Honey Maid (which is owned by Mondelez International) and created by Droga5, New York:
Accompanying it were longer profiles of real-life families on YouTube, like Jason and Tim — a married couple raising their two sons.
Side note: Their lives are pretty pedestrian, and almost boring — like a lot of our perfectly ordinary suburban lives. But that’s precisely the point:
The original video, which aired nationally in early March, received lots of public complaints for featuring gay and interracial couples.
You can guess what those complaints actually said, and if you guessed words like “disgusting,” “immoral,” “wrong” and “boycott”… you’d be in the right neighborhood.
So, what’s a brand to do? Hide? Nope.
Hope it blows over? Nuh-uh.
Instead, Honey Maid responded, borrowing a page from Alamo Drafthouse, which famously skewered an irate customer service call in 2011, and other brands that have made lemonade out of unnecessarily sour lemons.
In its case, Honey Maid turns hate into love, literally. It also took this opportunity to reiterate what the brand stands for; it underscored its bigger story (again!). And it also hired artists to help, something I’ve talked up before, when Airbnb used artists to tell the story of what it stands for, too.
Writing at MarketingProfs today, Carla Ciccotelli offers advice for brands dealing with haters, especially in our social media world. My favorite line from her post is this: “When dealing with complaints, think of the bigger picture and the effect public complaints will have on your business.”
I love the part about a bigger picture — especially when it helps a company make it clear what it stands for. And also — and this is gutsier — what it clearly won’t stand.
LOVEd this. Your observations and the campaign and response.
Thanks for drawing my attention to it.
Standing ovation.
A brand with balls.
Yes. And other body parts, too: Guts. Muscles. Brains. And a lot of heart.
Ann,
Thank you for this post. I was not aware of this campaign. Honey Maid is a brands that understands it audience and its voice
No it doesn’t. For generations we have eaten broken.up graham crackers w hot milk. The changed recipe does not work. Tastes awful. They needed to look at their whole audience, not just young people.
“Proving that only one thing matters when it comes to family…Love”
If that had been the message of the original commercial then no one would have said a word.
Just like I don’t want the social media experts I follow on Facebook talking politics, I am getting bored with crackers and cookies jumping on hot-button social issues.
Emphasis on jumping-on. It all seems a bit too opportunistic, to be honest.
That’s an interesting, take Mack. My take is a little different, though: I don’t see crackers and cookies and cereal (Cheerios, too) as jumping on a social issue as much as recognizing that Americans (and their customers) look different in 2014 than they did a generation ago. The smart brands know they have to embrace that multiculturalism and new reality to be successful.
In Honey Maid’s case, this was also clearly a deliberate effort to align a 90-year-old brand with a more modern and relevant narrative, based on who its customers are.
I think the “love” theme WAS the message of the original: “This is wholesome” ultimately revolves around the “family love” theme. The haters made it a news story.
Was that the original plan all along? Did Honey Maid expect and plan for it in an “opportunistic” manner? And if they did… so? Is that wrong? Great broader questions….
Honestly I think this was a very orchestrated effort, and that’s why I’m not buying it. Even in the ‘Love’ video you added above, what we’re supposed to take from that is that the only negative comments around that commercial came from the ‘haters’ or ‘intolerant’ people. So Honey Maid took the ‘hate’ from the ‘haters’ and turned it into Love.
Of course, the ‘hate’ came from both sides, as it always does when you deal with hot-button issues. Go to YouTube and look at the comments on the original video. Plenty of hateful and intolerant comments from people that don’t like the fact that the video showed a male couple and attached the ‘This is Wholesome’ slogan. And there’s also plenty of hateful and intolerant comments from people that AGREED with the male couple being in the video. Which is pretty ironic.
Standing ovation to a very wholesome brand.
Ann, thanks for sharing. I hadn’t seen the original video and now I’ve seen them both. LOVE that Honey Grahams decided to show their wholesomeness, heart, grace and savvy by redoing their commercial. I LOVE WHOLESOME HONEY GRAHAMS since I was a kid living in a middle class blue collar family of four — me, mom, dad and my kid brother, the bane of my existence.
That “bane of my existence” reference made me laugh, Sherrey… thanks for the comment! I really liked the Honey Maid effort, too. (Obviously!)
Some fantastic creative and what I appreciated most was the demonstration of how many positive comments and feedback they received. All too often we only hear the complaints.
Thanks for sharing Ann!
millions of people are at this very moment throwing up every graham cracker they have ever eaten. Drop the gay crap
This is such an empowering move by an old fashion company. It’s great to see that the world is changing and taking on the “haters.” I love how they responded in a classy yet cool manner. Great job Honey Maid.
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Honey Maid sucks. What happened to their thick, sugary, cinnamon coating and dense crunch? It makes me sad :'(
We just bought cinnamon graham crackers and were VERY disappointed. We might as well have bought regular graham crackers.
My only problem with Nabisco is the very wealthy brand is made in Mexico.
Not my place to judge on how someone loves! Gay, bi sexual does not matter to me. But keep your products in America.
Love it, as I’m sitting here eating my HoneyMaid Graham’s with peanut butter on top 🙂
I dont care what your commercials say. I want the old honey made graham crackers back. The new recipe tastes awful
WHAT HAVE THEY DONT TO AMERICAS FIRST GRAHAM CRACKER??
I agree. They are completely inedible! . I’m taking the box I just bought back to the store. The worst taste…like flour and sugar!!!
Where is the graham flour??? If they have any in it, it must be minuscule.
I’m a chef and I’ll never buy them again.
I never saw any of the ads I just know they don’t taste good anymore and they’re too small to it tastes like cardboard you can’t taste the honey why would you do that
Didn’t know anything about the new commercial campaign but recently bought a box looking for the sweetness of the cinnamon sugar on top smothered with buttery spread that I enjoyed while growing up as a treat in the 60’s. I was aghast at the flavor and the only way I could tolerate eating these bland cardboard like crackers was with some sweet cream cheese spread or possibly some frosting which defeats the wholesome flavor of the cracker! I want my cinnamon sugar crackers back please it was a favorite treat for someone limited in eating sugary products. Very disappointed with the new flavor.