Uncle Ben Goes Benson

I'm not sure what to say. I actually like the rice and conveniently forget about good old Uncle Ben as the "mascot" for the brand. Now that I think about it, it is 2007 and we have two prominent brands who still refer to blacks as Aunt and Uncle. Are they making things worse by now turning Uncle Ben into the Chairman of the board?

“We wanted to know if there was something there we could utilize to talk about new products, existing products, the values of the company,” Mr. Shands said, adding that both black and white consumers described the character as someone “they know and love.”

“Through the magic of marketing, we’ve made him the chairman,” Mr. Shands said. Uncle Ben’s office, he said, is “reflective of a man with great wisdom who has done great things.”

Magazine ads in the campaign, which carries the theme “Ben knows best,” present a painting of the character in a gold frame with the chairman’s title affixed on a plaque.

The painting is also on display on the home page of the redesigned Web site, which offers a virtual tour of Ben’s office. Visitors can browse through his e-mail messages, examine his datebook and read his executive memorandums.

“It’s important consumers begin to hear from Uncle Ben,” said Mr. Howell of Masterfoods, who is based in Los Angeles.

Despite the character’s impressive new credentials, some advertising executives expressed skepticism that the campaign could avoid negative overtones.

The ads are “asking us to make the leap from Uncle Ben being someone who looks like a butler to overnight being a chairman of the board,” Ms. Kern Foxworth said. “It does not work for me.”

“I applaud them for the effort and trying to move forward,” she added, but the decision to keep the same portrait of Uncle Ben, bow tie and all, also dismayed her because “they’re trying so hard to hold onto something I’m trying so hard to get rid of.”

Howard Buford, chief executive at Prime Access in New York, an agency specializing in multicultural campaigns, said he gave the campaign’s creators some credit. “It’s potentially a very creative way to handle the baggage of old racial stereotypes as advertising icons,” he said, but “it’s going to take a lot of work to get it right and make it ring true.”

For instance, Mr. Buford said, noting all the “Ben” references in the ads, “Rarely do you have someone of that stature addressed by his first name” — and minus any signs of a surname.

Mr. Buford, who is a real-life black leader of a company, likened the promotion of Uncle Ben to the abrupt plot twists on TV series like “Benson” and “Designing Women,” when black characters in subservient roles one season became professionals the next.

Like Mr. Buford, the first thing that came to mind was Benson and the "good intention" of trying to upgrade Uncle Ben seems more like a joke than progress. Nice try but le sigh!

Hat tip to the other "State Of ..."

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