Pride-themed, Rainbow-colored Oreo stirs up more than milk
Rainbow-colored Oreo featured in an ad on the Oreo Facebook page have elicited strong reactions around the web, both positive and negative. The photoshopped image of the Rainbow-colored Oreo was created in honor of LGBT Pride month, celebrated in June.
Oreo cookies pass along a conveyor belt at a Kraft Foods' factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in this May 2012 file photo. An ad the cookie's Facebook page featuring Rainbow Oreos in honor of Pride week stirred up rave reviews and a bit of controversy around the web Tuesday, June 26, 2012.
Aly Song/Reuters/File
An ad featuring a gay pride-themed Oreo is stirring up viral controversy today after Kraft posted the rainbow-colored Oreo on the popular treat's Facebook page. The ad, which featured an oversized cookie with rainbow-hued frosting layers above the date and accompanying caption, 鈥淧roudly support love!鈥� was originally posted to Oreo鈥檚 profile Monday evening.
June has special significance in the LGBT community. President Barack Obama declared the month Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Month on June 1, 2009. Many US cities, including New York and San Francisco, held annual Pride events over the weekend.
So far, over 167,000 Facebook users have 鈥渓iked鈥� the photoshopped image of the self-proclaimed 鈥渨orld鈥檚 favorite cookie.鈥� It has racked up 48,853 shares and over 22,000 comments 鈥� not all of them positive, and quite a few vitriolic.
Website Buzzfeed was one of the first sites to aggregate some of the more negative feedback as rumblings of a possible boycott grew louder Tuesday morning.
Facebook user Jeff Tulloch writes, 鈥淣o gay pride I boycott now.鈥� Lacy Wheeler Anderson sadly posts, 鈥淚 love oreos but will no longer be buying them because of this,鈥� while another user, Cody Patterson comments, 鈥渄isliked Oreo page just because of this one post. Think about how much business u just killed oreo. I can鈥檛 support a business that supports gays.鈥�
At least Boycott Oreo Facebook page has also been created in response to the cookie, which the ad was careful to point out is not real. The page so far has 0 鈥渓ikes.鈥�
Many other comments applauded the move. 鈥淭his is absolutely amazing!鈥� writes Haley Swilling. Eric Andrew writes, 鈥淎wesome Oreo. Merci beaucoup!鈥�
Oreo鈥檚 parent company Kraft Foods, which also owns Jell-O and Kool-Aid, among many other brands, released a statement saying that the picture was part of a 鈥渟eries of daily ads reflecting current events in a fun way using images of Oreo cookies and milk.鈥� Basil Maglaris, a spokeswoman for Kraft, told ABC News in an email that the cookie was created solely in honor of Pride month.
鈥淲e are excited to illustrate what is making history today in a fun and playful way,鈥� she writes in the email. 鈥淎s a company, Kraft Foods has a proud history of celebrating diversity and inclusiveness.聽 We feel the OREO ad is a fun reflection of our values.鈥�
Oreo is only the latest in a line of high-profile brands that have proclaimed their support for the LGBT community through various ad campaigns. A line of gay pride t-shirts launched by Target sold out in less than a month, while Ben & Jerry鈥檚 ice cream has renamed two different flavors in honor of marriage equality: 鈥�Apple-y Ever After,鈥� an apple pie ice cream sold in the U.K. during debates over same-sex marriage legalization, and 鈥淗ubby Hubby,鈥� a version of the 鈥淐hubby Hubby鈥� flavor that premiered when 聽same sex marriage was legalized in Vermont in 2009.
Department store JCPenney has drawn significant criticism from conservative groups such as One Million Moms for a recent series of ads featuring gay and lesbian parents.聽 The clothing purveyor made headlines last year for recruiting openly gay talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as its spokesperson. One Million Moms, which has 47,825 "likes" on its Facebook page, launched a boycott of the store.