"Raisin" the roof

Images of people have been used in advertisements for just about as long as advertisements have been around. It seems that with food advertisements, women play an important role. Some of the older brands have created their own female icons. One such young woman, the Sun-Maid raisin girl recently got a "make over" that has some people complaining.

Legend has it that young Loraine Collette Peterson was "discovered" sitting in her parents Fresno California back yard drying her long, black hair in 1915. She was asked to sit for a painting, where her image was captured in watercolor, holding a basket of grapes while wearing a red sunbonnet. That image was used to launch a new ad campaign and an icon was born. About three years ago the Sun-Maid company launched a new young lady in their TV ads, and she was given an update. The new Sun-Maid is buxom, thinner and is shown walking amongst the grape vines and later, the red carpet.

As we all know, change is never easy. Even though the new digital images of the Sun-Maid has been on the air for over three months, protests are only now being raised. It would seem that the hue and cries are being heard from both ends of the political spectrum. Jezebel.com has an article on their feminist website (along with a hilarious article on which modern day female actresses should play some of our most popular female icons) as does the ultra conservative Weekly Standard. The displeasure ranges from the fact that the CG image looks like a bad video game to suggestions of breast implants. Sun Maid has further plans for our hip, new Sun-Maid that could include seeing her at the gym or shopping or even speaking in different languages. Will the wonders never cease?



Seriously? I mean in the world full of starving children, unspeakable abuses and war we are spending time whining about the image on a box of raisins? OK, I found the article entertaining and the link to the history of the Sun-Maid was a good read. I also Googled the images of some other iconic women just to see how they had changed over the years and while some of them were for the better (Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth's for instance) it certainly wasn't earth-shattering.
I admit that I too, would prefer to keep our old friend the Sun-Maid the same (and we will on the boxes… the changes are only on the TV commercials) and not have to look at the bad computer animation. But I don't recall the Sun-Maid writing me and asking me what I thought. So, I can let them know that I am unhappy and buy generic raisins or I can let it go. I can only think that it must have been a slow news day at Yahoo Business news for anyone to crank out this mess.