Honey Maid Responds to Ad Criticism With New Video Promoting 'Love'

An international food and beverage company is taking aim at negative reaction to its advertisement about acceptance by attempting to spread the ad's message even further.

Mondelez International, formerly known as Kraft Foods, launched an ad campaign called "This Is Wholesome" in March. The campaign promoted Honey Maid graham crackers and Teddy Grahams with the words, "No matter how things change, what makes us wholesome never will." Mondelez created 15- and 30-second spots that featured biracial and gay couples with their families.

"Today we celebrate all families," the company wrote. "From working moms to two moms; stay at home dads to single dads; adopted kids to surrogate kids. Honey Maid recognizes that the reality of family has changed, but the wholesome connections that all families share will endure."

A couple of conservative organizations did not find anything wholesome about the ad. The group One Million Moms wrote on its website, "Nabisco should be ashamed of themselves for their latest Honey Maid and Teddy Graham cracker commercial where they attempt to normalize sin." The American Decency Association was also not happy about the ad, writing, "It's not a matter of acceptance; it's a matter of an evil agenda which is being pushed upon America and around the world. Satan continues to attack God's design and skew it to his own workings."

Evoking thoughts of Satan was probably not on executives' minds when the campaign was created. But instead of keeping quiet through the uproar, Honey Maid responded with a video. In it, the negative responses are literally turned into something positive.

In the new video, Honey Maid enlisted the help of two artists, who printed out all the comments and turned them into a mural.

"But the best part was all of the positive messages we received. Over ten times as many," the video states. "Proving that only one thing really matters when it comes to family... "

With that, the video shows the full image of what the artists created: all the comments arranged to spell the word "Love."

Honey Maid's latest video was uploaded yesterday thursday and has been viewed about a half-million times. The post has also received over 10,000 likes, compared to 400 dislikes.

The followup:

And the original ad: