General Mills's Ad Campaign: The Modern Family

Essay

In 2013, General Mills released an ad campaign called The Modern Family. This ‘Modern Family’ consisted of a caucasian mother, an African American father, and a biracial baby no older that 7 years old. One commercial ‘Just Checking’ caused an uproar from many people. This analysis will consider the impact of this commercial and what the commercial would have looked like if the target audience was different.

The commercial ‘Just Checking’ starts with a mixed baby(Grace Colbert), who is 6 years old at the time, running into frame to her caucasion mother, who is working at the dinner table, to ask,’if Cheerios are good for your heart?’ The mother responds with what the box says “Cheerios has whole grain oats that can help remove cholesterol and that’s heart healthy.” The child then dumps the rest of the box onto her African American father’s heart while he is sleeping. The commercial ends with the dad waking up and calling for his wife as the Cheerios shift and fall from his chest just over his heart. This idea that Cheerios and General Mills had about a modern family could have gone a different way. When most people think of a modern family they think of

Having the father black could mean many things. It could be that Cheerios is trying to depict a modern U.S. family, or the number of interracial marriages is at highest it has ever been. They also could have made the father black because African Americans have have a higher chance of getting a heart disease. There have been studies done that show that there is a 30% higher chance that African Americans will get a heart disease than any other race. Nearly a third of both African American men and women have LDL-C (bad cholesterol) levels of 130mg/dL or higher according to the American Heart Association. Cheerios wants to get people to realize that their cereal can help reduce the bad cholesterol levels in the