Damn you, General Mills!

I’ve spent the better part of this morning all misty eyed.

Why? Because of stupid General Mills. It wasn’t only General Mills fault but it’s how it started.

You see, a couple of days ago, General Mills in the midst of an agency review, stated that it was going to mandate a pretty hefty diversity requirement of its agency partners. Agencies would have to be at least 50% women and 20% people of color. And specifically they’re looking for this diversity to be represented in the creative/planning departments and I’ve been told among the executive ranks as well. It’s also my understanding that partnering with a minority-owned agency “in network” of a holding company will not satisfy this requirement.

The move has been lauded as huge by folks like @BradJakeman of Pepsi and @cindygallop.

Some of the big agencies can’t even begin to fake the data to find their way into this review. Gender and diversity issues have been one of the more dominant topics of the ad industry this year. Jakeman uses the hashtag #whitemenofadland routinely and Gallop rails against ad agencies and their lack of diversity with an impressive fervor.

But here’s the thing, this move by General Mills should hardly be a surprise. General Mills has been walking the walk for while now. And when people didn’t like it, they doubled down. With a rather strong middle finger to the haters, the next iteration of that spot they aired during the Super Bowl. They have the creative to prove where they stand. If I were an ad agency vying for their business (or that of Nabisco, PepsiCo or Subaru), I would parade out a veritable “United Colors of Benneton” cast.

It would appear to me that these are all companies that have been permeated by a culture of diversity.

So for now, here’s a smattering of wonderful creative which would paint a much better picture of our country than Trump would ever have you believe. Here’s to General Mills, Nabisco and Subaru.

It would appear that General Mills knew what kids already knew…

Grab some tissues for these spots from Honey Maid…

And yet again, if you want to register your disdain for Honey Maid’s strategy and efforts, they had answer for that too.

And lastly, here are two new spots from Subaru (a company with a history for embracing the LGBT community with abundantly open arms) that are all about safety but it should be duly noted how diverse the spots are.