Barilla launches gay family ad campaign

Video: Who's feeling all warm inside? Barilla launches gay family ad campaign with a beautiful, sexy and loving lesbian family.

Barilla "Love Life" from Jordan Bayne on Vimeo.

In September 2013, when the chairman of Barilla, the famous pasta brand, said he would never use a gay family in one of their advertising spots for TV, it set off a global storm, and it hit home with me. The company was forced to try to defend their position, then apologise, and finally admit that they needed to leave antiquity and join the modern age.

A month later, in November 2013, Barilla announced that it would work to make the company more diverse saying it would create an ad campaign more inclusive than the previous ads, which had depicted only "traditional" families.

Over a year later they have yet to produce an ad featuring a gay family. In fact, nine months after this announcement, Italian frozen-food company Findus produced Italy's first gay-inclusive d. See it here.

In summer 2014 Barilla launched a contest calling for content creators to submit work under 60 seconds that reflected their new diversity campaign. When I heard about the contest, I felt strongly compelled to create a commercial testing their commitment to a more inclusive ad campaign. Their new call to action -- "Love life, love pasta, in your own way" -- asked us to bring our distinct voice emphasizing the values they want to promote, these values being diversity, uniqueness and inclusion. I saw this as a great opportunity to offer them a commercial with high production value and a modern take on family.

In fact, my submission was the only one that confronted them face-to-face with a gay family. However, regardless of its superior production quality, I was not surprised when the spot was not selected by Barilla for competition. It represented a beautiful, sexy, loving lesbian family.

Read the full article by Jordan Bayne at: huffingtonpost.com