God bless Cheerios for their latest ad campaign. Forgoing the tired and insulting schtick of the ‘dumb dad’ who is too inept to tie his kid’s shoes, General Mills decided to highlight the awesomeness of dadhood to promote Peanut Butter Cheerios.

The longform web ad begins with a man waking up to find his kid sitting on top of him wearing a horse head mask. The man’s response? “Is that a new mask? I like it. It’s really creepy. Good stuff.” And it just gets better. Getting right to the point, “Hey, let me introduce myself. My name is Dad and proud of it and all dads should be.” Take a look:

Far too many companies choose to portray fathers as bumbling morons or inconsiderate burdens. Take this cringeworthy Kraft commercial for example, “here we go again, Dad always messes up everything! Thank goodness Kraft Mac N Cheese is here to save the day, otherwise Dad would really be an intolerable oaf.” Not an exact quote, but that’s the gist:

Or how about this Discover Card ad about forgetful husbands who always forget to pay the bills. Never mind the woman calling Discover Card complaining about her forgetful husband is home during the day with a cup of coffee while her absent minded husband is presumably at work — shame on him!

It’s so refreshing to finally see dads portrayed as the awesome and integral members of the family unit that they are. Hopefully more companies will take a queue from General Mills and make dads the star of the show; they’ve certainly earned a little time in the spot light.



