In the world of social media receiving negative comments is not an if but rather when. Every brand I have worked with at some point had a negative comment posted on their page. You must handle them with care and address the comments in public.

However, what Honey Maid did was feature a commercial called “This is Wholesome”. It featured a gay and interracial families. This received outrage on social media. Tweets saying it was horrible, never buying the product again, and such. Honey Maid could have distanced themselves from the controversy but they stood behind the commercial.

The commercial reminds me of the coverage Cheerios had last year with the interracial couple. It just got out of hand but Cheerios didn’t want to pull the commercial. So they resulted to disabling comments on the video. They later followed up with another commercial form the family.

So what did Honey Maid do? They printed out the comments and hired two artists to make something out of them. Then they printed out the positive comments and added to the art. I suggest you watch the video above to see what they did, it’s pretty awesome.

This is a way for a brand to stand behind their marketing/advertising in a great way. They didn’t take on the detractors but basically said this is what we feel is right and believe in what we did! Congrats Honey Maid! I’d love to see more brands turning to social to address these in constructive ways!