The commercial starts by asking the question, "When were you first considered a family?" and shows scenes of several straight couples and families. It then asks the question, "When did you first fight to be considered a family?" and shows lovely scenes of an incredibly diverse array of families, including a young lesbian couple, and gay male couple with a baby, an array of beautiful interracial families, a woman with two children, and much more. At the end, a voiceover declares, "Family isn't defined by who you love, but how." I've never seen such a lovely statement of what it means to be a family today in America, at least not in a commercial. The commercial includes the hashtag #HowWeFamily.

It turns out that the director of the commercial is Dustin Lance Black, who won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for the movie "Milk" about the life of LGBT rights pioneer Harvey Milk. As reported in Huffpo, the commercial launches a three-month effort by Johnson and Johnson that will include profiles of 10 real-life U.S. families, a "docu-short" on the changing face of the American family and the results of a national survey on families. Each of these components will be shared at howwefamily.com.



Manoj Raghunandanan, Senior Director of Marketing for Johnson and Johnson's McNeil Consumer Healthcare, told Advertising Age that the ad was representative of his company's commitment to celebrating how "families look and feel different [now] than they did before." He added, "Because we're a family brand, because we're an iconic American brand, and we want to continue to serve families into the future, I think it's important that we reflect what that family is today."

How lovely, and how very, very smart.

Here's the ad I saw last night, which is apparently the extended version:

Here's a little "behind the project" video on making the commerical, which features interviews with Dustin Lance Black and a few of the families profiled:

If wingnut heads exploded over the Cheerios commercials, they are REALLY going to explode over these commercials, which are much bolder and in-your-face (in the best possible way) about the reality of American families today.

Bravo to Johnson and Johnson.