Cheerios TV advert targeted by racists on YouTube
Abusive comments posted on YouTube over commercial with mixed-race family
Cheerios is standing by an advertisement of a bi-racial family extolling the health benefits of the cereal, despite a flood of racist remarks on YouTube that forced the disabling of commenting.
The Cheerios advert shows a young girl asking her mother whether the cereal is "good for your heart". Her mother assures her that is so.
The girl runs away with a cereal box, and in the next scene the girl's sleeping father awakes on a couch with a pile of Cheerios on the side of his chest where his heart is. The commercial ends with the word "Love" on screen.
The advert, heartwarming to many, began on US television on Monday and was uploaded to YouTube yesterday.
But it has caused a controversy for the maker of Cheerios, General Mills, because an inter-racial cast portrays the family.
It features a black father and white mother and has generated abusive comments online, but General Mills says it stands by the commercial. The advert will "absolutely not" be withdrawn, said Meredith Tutterow, associate marketing director for Cheerios at General Mills in Golden Valley, Minnesota. "There are many kinds of families," Tutterow said, "and Cheerios just wants to celebrate them all."
The advert was viewed by more than 2.2 million people on YouTube, but the comments section was inundated with racist remarks before General Mills had the commenting disabled.