20 Years Before It Was Cool to Cast Gay Couples, Ikea Made This Pioneering Ad

The mini-wave of brands casting gay couples in TV ads this year continues to rise, with the likes of Honey Maid, Cheerios, and DirecTV all diving in. More power to them. But Ikea was the first marketer to feature a gay couple in a mainstream commercial. Twenty years ago.

The 1994 spot below, from Deutsch, ran after 10 p.m. in three markets where Ikea then had a significant presence: New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The late-night airing ensured that the ad wouldn’t be seen during “family hour” programming. That concession, however, did little to quell the objections of the American Family Association and its leader, the Rev. Donald Wildmon.

Wildmon called for boycotts of Ikea stores, one of which, on Long Island, was the target of a bomb threat, which turned out to be unfounded. The retailer, however, continued to air the ad, which was part of a lifestyle campaign featuring different types of consumers (a divorced mom, adopting parents, empty nesters, etc.) that began in 1993.

The creative team behind “Dining Room,” including creative director Greg DiNoto, associate cd Kathy Delaney, copywriter Dallas Itzen and art director Patrick O’Neill, are no longer at Deutsch. But O’Neill, who later worked at TBWAChiatDay and now is chief creative officer at blood testing company Theranos, shared his memories of helping to create something that didn’t win awards but was truly groundbreaking.

brightcove.createExperiences();

AdFreak: Where did the idea for “Dining Room” come from?
Patrick O’Neill: We would base a lot of our stories on the real people we would see. We’d go to the New Jersey store—in Elizabeth—and because [the ads] were based on real people, we would watch, observe and see how people use the product, who they were, what kinds of things they were buying. And we’d figure which stores were the best ones. And there were a lot of gay couples there. We thought, Why don’t we do one? Donny [Deutsch] thought it was a great idea and felt like it was a true representation of Ikea’s values, which is they’re always accepting of everyone.

So, that store was like your focus group or idea center?
It was. And we figured out where life intersected with furniture. … You had to understand what was going on in the culture at that time, I thought, versus just doing [ads] in a sort of timeless manner. Divorcees still go there, that kid still gets adopted, and gay couples still go there, you know [laughs]. It just wasn’t a typical depiction in media.

What was the shoot like?
A lot of the grips and all the people that were working on the set—you could feel that there was a lot of tension in the air because it was so unusual to see.

Did you shoot it at the store?
Yes.

Who was the director?
Paul Goldman. He had just started directing. [At Deutsch] he worked on the original “It’s a big country. Someone’s got to furnish it” campaign that was the year before.

How nervous was Ikea going into this?
They believed in it from the beginning. They were never nervous about it.

Did you have to test it?
No.

Did you think at the time that more people would follow in the footsteps of that ad?
I did.

Why didn’t that happen?
It’s interesting. I think the reason why people remember the ad was because it was done in a way where it was, “Wow, they really did it.” We weren’t mucking around. It was clear what was going on. And there were bomb threats. There was backlash. There were New York op-eds written about it. I mean, there were all kinds of things happening. In the years that followed—not too long after—Ellen [DeGeneres], she came out. Melissa Etheridge came out. A lot of women came out at the time. So, I think the culture started doing it without it being commercials. But as far as brands, I think they were nervous about it.

Does the groundswell we’re seeing now reflect what’s going on with state marriage laws?
Yeah. I think it’s also that the millennials and younger are very accepting of [gay] marriage. When that is legitimized by a large core of consumers, you can have that in communications because the approval rating for that is much, much higher once you get to a certain age group.

Would a different creative team have done the same thing?
No. … Look, the way we cast, and had them speak about their relationship, and the premise—it was all based on real stuff. I think the reason it turned out the way it did was all those people working together on it. We knew gay people, and I felt like the lone representative [laughs]. I felt a lot of responsibility making sure I didn’t let my people down.

How proud are you of this, ultimately, and is it still up there in your top three ads?
Well, I’m proud of it because it was the first one. It was scary in some ways. Everyone was true to the period, but there was no precedent. And it wasn’t a welcoming environment. So, that part of it makes me proud and happy to be part of.



Cheerios Tugs at the Heartstrings Again With a Dad Working the Third Shift

Oh man, grumpy dad who’s working weird hours in this new Cheerios ad from Saatchi & Saatchi. Don’t get mad at your kid. Take a lesson from Peanut Butter Cheerios dad, and be cool. Hang out for a minute and laugh with Junior. It’ll be nice before you head off for however many grueling hours of whatever it is you do.

Judging by your rugged appearance and attire, and that clocking in at midnight is even an option, it’s presumably something blue-collar. Dock worker? Warehouse worker? Auto worker? You are in the Cheerios demo. You should be eating lots of Cheerios at 11 p.m.

Sure, Cheerios might being mimicking your frustrating but also beautiful existence right back at you just to sell more breakfast cereal, because times aren’t just tough for salt-of-the-earth people with families to support, they’re tough for cereal brands, too. Nobody wants to eat cereal with their kids at any time of day these days.

So, also don’t get mad at Cheerios, because making ads that use children to pander to your heartstrings is what they do. Indeed, sometimes manipulating your love for sentimental family moments really does work well … so Cheerios is probably going to keep trying.

Budweiser lidera mais uma vez o top 10 do Super Bowl AdMeter

Se alguém ainda tinha dúvidas de que a Budweiser levaria, mais uma vez, a liderança do Super Bowl AdMeter, realizado pelo USA Today, elas acabaram. Puppy Love, o fofíssimo comercial criado pela Anomaly e estrelado por um cãozinho e os cavalos Clydesdale, ficou em primeiro lugar no top 10, repetindo o feito de Brotherhood no ano passado. Foram 57 comerciais exibidos no jogo de ontem, três a mais do que em 2013.

Foi a consagração total da marca e da agência, mas também serviu para mostrar que é possível contar boas histórias sem precisar complicar, emocionar, sem ser piegas. Basicamente, o que a gente espera do maior embate do mercado publicitário: que realmente sejam os melhores entre os melhores.

Outro filme da Budweiser, Hero’s Welcome, que mostra uma cidade recepcionando um soldado que está voltando para casa, ficou em terceiro lugar.

Doritos também se deu bem mais uma vez, e dois comerciais do Crash the Super Bowl ficaram em segundo e quarto lugares – Cowboy Kid e Time Machine, respectivamente. A invasão dos personagens dos anos 1980 no comercial da RadioShack garantiu à rede a quinta colocação, enquanto a Hyundai ficou em sexto com Sixth Sense.

A fofíssima Gracie, de Cheerios, Technology, da Microsoft, e Going All the Way, da Coca-Cola, ficaram com a sétima, oitava e nona posição. Soundcheck, da Pepsi, encerra o top 10.

top10

Brainstorm9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
Twitter | Facebook | Contato | Anuncie

Cheerios faz sua estreia no Super Bowl, sem perder a identidade

O cereal Cheerios é praticamente uma instituição norte-americana, presente no café da manhã de grande parte das famílias do país. Este ano, a marca fará sua estreia no Super Bowl, com um comercial simples, sem grandes histórias, celebridades ou efeitos especiais, mas que ainda assim resume muito bem o posicionamento do produto.

O filme criado pela Saatchi & Saatchi, com produção da Community Films, consegue preservar a identidade de Cheerios, mostrando que é um produto que faz parte do cotidiano das famílias. A sacada é reconhecer que assim como as famílias podem, sim, ser inter-raciais, as crianças estão cada vez mais espertas.

Em Gracie, o pai conversa com a filha durante o café da manhã e usa o cereal para demonstrar que a família vai crescer, já que a mãe está grávida. A menina aproveita o embalo e negocia o acréscimo de mais um membro, um cãozinho.

Vale o play, especialmente por conta da fofíssima garotinha.

cheerios

Brainstorm9Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
Twitter | Facebook | Contato | Anuncie

Cheerios Takes Home Dubious Honor of Most Hated Ad During the Golden Globes

Twitter is a tough crowd during any high-profile live TV programming, when snark levels always spike. Cheerios learned that the hard way during the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday when it aired a six-month-old commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi in New York that aimed for heartwarming but came off, to many, as depressing.

The ad shows a mom and her son having breakfast, when the boy pipes up and asks, "Did Nana ever give you Cheerios when you were a little kid?" This seemingly innocent question leads to an exchange that's supposed to be cute, though it leaves Mom practically in tears by the end—and got Twitter fuming.

Check out some of the reactions below. The spot is, of course, super manipulative—but that's hardly out of line with what Cheerios always does in its advertising. The General Mills brand blatantly manufactures emotion, sometimes more deftly than other times. We didn't think this one was actually that bad. (And in fact, a number of people praised the ad on Twitter last night, or at least said it made them teary.) But the difference is, during an event like the Globes, you're much more likely to get abused on Twitter for that kind of manipulation.

Makes you wonder what the brand is planning for its first Super Bowl ad next month.


    

Kids Watch Cheerios Ad With Interracial Parents, Don’t Understand the Fuss

Kids have the oddest perspective on things. For example: They're not even very racist! This truism is brought home once again in this video by the Fine Brothers, in which children between the ages of 7 and 13 are asked to react to Saatchi & Saatchi's famous Cheerios commercial with the interracial couple. And what do you know—they don't understand in the slightest why it might have been controversial. Comments remain disabled for the original video, which now has about 4 million views. They're enabled on the Fine Brothers clip, and are mostly positive—for now, at least.

    

It’s 2013, and People Are Still Getting Worked Up About Interracial Couples in Ads

It's another one of those things that shouldn't be a story but is—an ad from a major U.S. brand featuring an interracial couple and their daughter. You'd think this new Cheerios ad from Saatchi & Saatchi in New York might go largely unnoticed, given the plethora of interracial couples on TV shows these days. (NBC's Parenthood is a notable example, though far from the only one.) But it's not going unnoticed—it hit Reddit's front page, a place largely reserved for life's great oddities, and the YouTube view count is rising fast. The problem is that TV ads have always lagged TV programming in this regard, as so many brands are clearly scared of being perceived as making a political statement with the casting of their commercials. Thus, the Cheerios ad, despite its characters being representative of tens of thousands of actual couples in America, sticks out like a sore thumb. And then you have the YouTube comments section, which predictably has devolved into an endless flame war, with references to Nazis, "troglodytes" and "racial genocide." At what point will an ad like this just seem normal?

UPDATE: Camille Gibson, the brand's vice president of marketing, said in a statement: "Consumers have responded positively to our new Cheerios ad. At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families, and we celebrate them all." On Monday's Today show, she added: "The [YouTube] comments that were made were, in our view, not family friendly. And that was really the trigger for us to pull them off. … Ultimately we were trying to portray an American family. And there are lots of multicultural families in America today."

    

Cheerios Reduce Cholesterol?

cheerios_helping_hearts_1

Cereals are a great breakfast meal. However, it looks like Cheerios can do more than satisfy our hunger. They can lower our cholesterol levels! Research presented at the Experimental Biology Meeting revealed Cheerios can help lower cholesterol by 10 percent in one month.

The study, which was conducted and presented by Provident Clinical Research, found that eating two 1 1/2 cup servings of Cheerios daily, as part of a reduced calorie diet low in fat, lowered LDL or “bad” cholesterol about 10 percent in one month. Cheerios is the only leading ready-to-eat cereal clinically proven to lower cholesterol.

The study also showed eating Cheerios as part of a reduced calorie diet low in fat lowers bad cholesterol twice as much in 12 weeks than a reduced calorie diet low in fat without Cheerios. In addition to the cholesterol-lowering benefits, the study found that eating Cheerios as part of a reduced calorie diet lowered weight by five pounds and shrank waists by three centimeters (1.2 inches) in 12 weeks, both of which can help reduce risk for heart disease.

Cheerios is made with 100 percent natural whole grain oats, which contribute to its cholesterol-lowering benefits. The whole grain oats in Cheerios contain soluble fiber that act as tiny sponges to soak up and remove some cholesterol from the body. Additionally, Cheerios contains only 1 gram of sugar and has no artificial colors or flavors.

Brian Yalung is the editor for Beneath the Brand and Beyond Madison Avenue. He is also the owner of several other premium blog sites like Just Another Health Blog. Stick around for unique and sensible posts coming your way.

(Source) Press