Farewell, Aunt Jemima

The current societal momentum for meaningful change in the racial dynamics of America has proven to be the tipping point for the Aunt Jemima brand, which PepsiCo’s Quaker Foods Division will be eliminating.

I was responsible for the brand in the 1990’s, one of a long line of managers trying to update the brand’s image, hoping to leave behind its racially-charged past. We redesigned the logo to reflect a (then) current-looking black mom, supported numerous black female causes and even engaged Gladys Knight and her grandkids for advertising and promotion support. Gladys was universally respected by consumers of all races.

We told ourselves that the brand didn’t represent that slave era history any more, that we’d moved beyond it to a world of modern pearl-earringed black women who could become adored by all. Consumer research and volumetric skews suggested that the brand was embraced by the black community, for whom the brand represented warmth and nurturing and nourishment. We convinced ourselves we were actually making a difference. Perhaps we were like the fish that don’t know that there is water.

But as we launched the Gladys Knight campaign, my media trainers from the PR Agency focused on how there would be a few “squeaky wheel” opportunists looking to promote their books or websites with the media attention on Aunt Jemima. We couldn’t let a few outliers deter us from our progress.

The ensuing 25 years have shown America that modest incremental progress is not sufficient, if it even was then. And that today the brand is offensive to more than a few outliers. The American shame that was slavery cannot be undone, but we can remove even vestigial reminders of that ignominious era, so that we unequivocally reject any perpetuation of its principles or memory.

I have every confidence that the smart marketers of the Old Oat Company can build a valuable new equity, perhaps around a 2020’s warm, nurturing, successful black woman who cares about nourishing her children with family-pleasing breakfast foods. While the brand will always be a part of my past, I will be gladly embrace a new brand that stands for today’s values without evoking our reprehensible past to anyone.