Spaghetti, homophobia and marketing

Now Barilla wants to get closer to the LGBT + community

GAYLES.TV.- Not everything is worth it. In www.gayles.tv we are firm defenders of the business diversity (you can check it here ) or downloading the Aequalis report. Best practices in managing LGTBI business diversity that is already preparing its fourth edition. If anything we have learned during this time is that the approach of a company to the collective LGTB + It has to be organic and real. That is to say that the brand that thinks that with putting a float during the Pride fulfills the box of the integration, is mistaken.

That's why the campaign that Barilla recently launched. In a special edition of their famous Spaghetti No. 5, a lesbian couple appears sharing pasta emulating the lady and the tramp. The new lesbian package was given to the attendees of a world pasta championship where 18 young chefs from around the world participate in challenges to show their qualities and skills in the kitchen. We are happy about this initiative and we celebrate that they make the group visible, but we do not forget.

We have memory and we remember how Barilla was positioned as one of the most homophonic brands when in 2013 Guido Barilla declared in a radio interview: «We will not advertise with homosexuals because we like the traditional family. If gays do not agree, they can always eat pasta from another brand. Everyone is free to do whatever they want because we do not bother anyone«.

The designer of the package Olimpia Zagnoli He shared the message on his networks: «the first time I met with the team Barilla I remembered the infamous statements they made at 2013 about gay couples. I told them that I was so angry that I had stopped buying their products for many years. What I did not know while I was protesting in my kitchen, is that Barilla had made significant progress and had defined its code of ethics, adjusting its internal policies to ensure full inclusion and respect for different sexual orientations, gender equality, rights of people with functional diversity, and multiple and intergenerational issues ».

Such a declaration meant a boycott that affected their sales and even The New York Times he published a cartoon called «Planet Pasta » and illustrated by Nicholas Blechman what the subject was about We do not know if it is because of the boycott, the loss of clients or an ideological change that is hard to believe. But Barilla It has been back and now includes diversity policies and has even positioned itself in favor of adoption by homosexual couples. On their website they show their commitment to the collective, but the movement is demonstrated by walking. Barilla He has taken a first step and we value his change of direction.

We'll be alert.