Cheerios’ first Super Bowl ad stars interracial family that sparked race row last year
Cheerios has revealed its first ever Super Bowl ad, bringing back the interracial family that resulted in a plethora of racist comments on YouTube, forcing the platform to shut down the comments section.
The May 2013 the ‘Just Checking’ spot featured a charming little girl emptying a box of the cereal onto her father’s chest after hearing about its benefits for the heart.
However, some viewers took to YouTube and Reddit with racist comments on the “disgusting ad”, making references to Nazis, ‘troglodytes’ and ‘racial genocide’ and even debating interracial marriage.
At the time, the vice president of marketing for Cheerios, Camille Gidson, released a statement defending the ad after the backlash, saying: “At Cheerios, we know there are many kinds of families and we celebrate them all.”
The new commercial, titled ‘Gracie’, stars the same little girl being told that she will soon have a baby brother. It will air during the first unscheduled time out of Super Bowl XLVIII.
Both spots were created by Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
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