In 2014, Weber Shandwick alongside the brand and advertising creative partner agency Droga5 first launched Honey Maid's (a Mondelēz International brand) "This Is Wholesome" campaign. The campaign is rooted in the idea that while the makeup and day-to-day lives of families have evolved, the importance of wholesome family connections remains the same. From spotlighting real families like same-sex parents, a single dad to immigrant parents, a disabled veteran, a stepfamily and a multiracial family – Honey Maid is proud to celebrate all wholesome family connections in today's society.
Embarking on year three of the groundbreaking campaign, the brand remained dedicated to celebrating the diverse American family. The objective of the next chapter of the campaign was to capture the shift from simply acknowledging the diverse fabric of America to truly showcasing how acceptance can foster love and friendship within families and among neighbors. Via four digital spots, Honey Maid featured the real stories of five American families with unique backgrounds including an adopted son, a disabled veteran and his family, a Hispanic gay couple and neighbors of different cultures. All the spots told the story of each family and how acceptance played a role in their lives. As with past chapters of "This Is Wholesome," all of the culturally relevant, real stories had potential to resonate (positively and negatively) with media and consumers.
Alongside the launch of the digital spots, Weber Shandwick wanted to create an ownable way for Honey Maid to spark engagement and inspire an even richer brand story.
The makeup of the American family continues to evolve. And while society has made strides to recognize all families, prejudice and lack of true acceptance is still a reality for many American families.
Honey Maid has legacy of celebrating the diverse fabric of the American family for more than 90 years. In April 2016 (in conjunction with the release of the four new spots featuring five diverse families), Honey Maid sought to encourage Americans to view the world through the eyes of acceptance and remind us that like Honey Maid products, no matter how families change, what makes them wholesome remains the same.
The internet is a reflection of society as it stands today. But when thinking about fostering acceptance, the Weber Shandwick team uncovered insightful data around hatred spread across the internet.
Day-in and day-out, people are bombarded with negative images and headlines of hate, bigotry, bullying and racism. In fact a recent Pew Research Center survey[1] found nearly three-quarters of American adults who use the internet have witnessed online harassment and 40 percent have experienced it themselves.
This begged the question, "What if the internet was a more wholesome place?" What if you could experience it as a place that was more accepting of different ideas, beliefs and lifestyles?
The Weber Shandwick Honey Maid team concepted and created the Wholesome Button – an easy-to-download browser app that allows users to experience the Internet through the lens of acceptance and positivity. By downloading Wholesomize.It, users can install a button on their desktop browsers that will allow them with a click to replace all the images and headlines on a web page with wholesome content. Once added, users simply click the "Wholesomize It" bookmark within their browser any time they desire to replace negative images and headlines on their screen with content celebrating love, heartwarming family connections and acceptance.
The execution tapped into the recent emergence of playful, engaging browser plug-ins. Inspired by this existing trend, Weber Shandwick sought to leverage the popularity of this online phenomenon and shift use from something that was entertaining and playful to a tool with a true purpose: to reimagine the internet as a more wholesome place.
In tandem with the launch of the four digital spots featuring five diverse families, the Wholesome Button browser app offered a digital extension to the new creative that encouraged users to view and accept diversity as wholesome. The bookmarklet enabled fans to connect with the campaign and experience a reimagined world; one that is accepting of different ideas, identities and beliefs. The Weber Shandwick team encouraged media and consumers to make their online environment a more positive place by adding the Wholesome Button at http://wholesomize.it.
[1] http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/part-5-witnessing-harassment-online/
Since the campaign launched on April 4, 2016, the Wholesome Button has transformed to more than just a PR hook and offered a digital extension to the Honey Maid 2016 "This is Wholesome" campaign that helped create buzz and extend the news value of the campaign.
Media coverage around the "This is Wholesome" campaign launch has garnered more than 116 million impressions, with 77 percent of those articles mentioning the Wholesome Button.
Thousands of users have visited Wholesomize.It, with 40 percent of those visitors adding and using the Wholesome Button.
Key pieces of media coverage, like TheAtlantic.com, Ad Week and Creativity.com, have helped spread the news about the Wholesome Button, driving almost 30 percent of referrals to Wholesomize.It and sparking more than 500 social engagements.
Key pieces of media coverage include:
