The interracial family that was featured in a Cheerios commercial, drawing both good and bad reactions, is back for the Super Bowl.
According to the Associated Press, the previous ad featured the fictional family of a black dad, white mom and their biracial little girl. Despite the ad sparking ugly and racist comments, it received support for showcasing racial diversity.
In the original ad, the young daughter asks her mother about the health risk of eating Cheerios cereal and, inspired by the response, she runs to her father, who is napping on the couch The little girl then pours a bowl of cereal on his chest.
General Mills, owner of Cheerios, said that the ad reflected the change in U.S. population. Despite controversy, the ad continued to air for several months. The company reportedly shut down the comment section of their Youtube page due to the amount of comments.
The new ad takes the story further, thanks to an expanding family. The father uses individual Cheerios to represent each member of the family. He then explains to his daughter that "Pretty soon, you're going to have a baby brother."
The young girl simply smiles, adds another Cheerio to the pile and says "And a puppy." The father agrees and the ad closes with a shot of the mother watching from the side.
"We fell in love with this family," Camille Gibson, vice president of marketing for Cheerios CBS News. "We thought the big game provided an opportunity to tell a story about family love."
The AP reported a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl costs around $4 million this year. The ad is set to air during the first unscheduled time out of Sunday's Feb. 2, game.
According to the New York Daily News, MSNBC recently apologized for a tweet stating that people would be offended by the upcoming Super Bowl ad, due to the interracial family. The Republican National Committee called for a boycott of the MSNBC network after the tweet was posted.
"Maybe the rightwing will hate it, but everyone else will go awww: the adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family," the tweet read on Wednesday, along with a shortened link leading to an article about the ad.
Along with the apology, MSNBC has removed the offensive tweet.
"The Cheerios tweet from @msnbc was dumb, offensive and we've taken it down. That's not who we are at msnbc," MSNBC.com Executive Editor Richard Wolffe tweeted.
