Betty Crocker
Redefining the American family for the modern age
Role: Assistant Creative and Writer
Betty Crocker wanted to be more relevant to modern consumers and connect with them on a level that went beyond cake mixes and cookbooks. They wanted to reinforce their reputation as experts while expanding their audience to new generations.
This one took some pretty hard thinking. First, I had to work with my team to convince the brand to go beyond communications and conduct real cultural research. The brand came to us thinking they wanted to create a campaign, but we were able to show them that without credibility and the research to say something truly meaningful, their communications wouldn’t make the impact they were looking for.
Once we’d done that, we created a research study to learn about the new definitions of the American family. And what we found wasn’t at all what we expected. We’d gone into it thinking we’d find that people were largely dissatisfied with their family life – that they yearned for an earlier time and felt that the changing American family was a liability, not an asset. We’d prepared, then, to create optimistic messages about the future, and tools to help people overcome the issues that were pushing them apart.
But what we discovered was a far different, and pretty amazing, really. Sure, there was some nostalgia for nuclear husband-wife-children units and the simplicity of an earlier time, but, for the most part, people were happy to be part of family groups that were more welcoming of change. People were spending more time together than ever before, redefining their family groups for themselves, and leading more joyful lives because of it.
It was, in the end, pretty incredible material. We used it to create a report that shared our key conclusions in the context of other institutional research, as well as a digital hub that broke it down and made it easily consumable.
It was a project I was proud to be part of – and I was even happier the next year, when the brand used the momentum we’d created to take the project to Twin Cities Pride.
