Please, Leave Our Abuelita Alone! – Pitching Family Values to Sell Us Junk Food

“n the annals of Hispanic marketing, the figure of the abuelita (grandma) has been used to the point of exhaustion. We’ve seen her pitching toothpaste, hot chocolate, phone cards — even high-speed Internet services. But to invoke her cooking abilities to pitch junk food is a bit of a stretch.

Take Kraft Foods’ latest Hispanic-targeted initiative, De mamá a mamá (From mother to mother), a program, says the company, designed to help busy Hispanic moms keep the family traditions alive through food, “especially recipes taught by abuelita.” The marketing effort, announced last week, includes a series of television spots featuring Bibi Gaytán, the 35-plus-year-old Mexican former singer and telenovela actress who is now a mother of three and apparently not a very good cook.”

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