A commercial is not a medium for social change, it is a marketing tool to get people to buy a product. There are a lot of ways with the social media today, and television, and the movies to show alternative lifestyles. If I was sitting on the board of directors for a company and the marketing department ran any type of advertisement that pissed off a bunch of people, especially if the pissed off people got organized and vocal, that marketing director would be looking for a new job. Marketing is about selling not alienating anyone.
Marketing is about selling not alienating anyone? It is more complex then that...
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/cheerios-interracial-ad-spiked-its-online-branding-77-150098
Chick-fil-A was 'supposed' to be dead in the water since the head of the business said he cares not for gay marriage. That sort of pushed the gays off the field. Turns out many people did the opposite of decry the company and ran to buy it's products in support; mostly right wing crowds it was reported.
Many soda and processed foods companies and fast food and soda companies that stock the items with GMOs, HFCS, artificial vitamins and other processed crap got bad press for many years. They were blamed for childhood obesity and health issues etc.
In general that was a left wing protest against those businesses and what they did. That is not my point however. Those same businesses still making the SAME PRODUCTS and putting the SAME ******* IN THOSE PRODUCTS made a PR move to say they were now LGBT friendly... The same base and same media that used to rip the companies were now supportive of these businesses, again the product line has not shifted, and some media critics even pumped the idea of people buying those nasty food products as a sign of support of the LGBT movement. The "food" is still as unhealthy as ever...
Check this classic wool over the eyes move. Smoking as 'empowerment' for women!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom
The adweek article talked about brand awareness of Cheerios, just compared to other GM brands, as going up. No final impact overall, yet it is clear the effect.
The market of mixed race families were not the aim nor who they were looking to reach. Who knows what the aim really was? The effect was that the ad polarized (as least online commentators) many and from that polarity new brand loyalty can be had and new allies gained to use your product.
Was it by design? Ad men are not always that clever...Human nature and the breaks given are interesting.
New Coke was really a mistake yet it did reignite Coca-cola proper when the original version came back. So too with an unexpected win over this mixed family ad campaign.