This article was first published in 2024 and was last updated June 20, 2025.
- Tension: Brands promise inclusivity but still publish messages that reveal outdated mindsets.
- Noise: Media outrage cycles flatten nuance, reducing complex cultural failures into “PR disasters.”
- Direct Message: Cultural harm isn’t caused by intent—it’s caused by whose voice was missing when the message was made.
To learn more about our editorial approach, explore The Direct Message methodology.
It’s a scene we’ve seen before.
In early 2024, Heinz launched a new ad campaign that was meant to feel bold and nostalgic, a reinterpretation of heritage branding with a modern twist.
But it backfired. Within hours of the campaign’s release, criticism flooded in.
Viewers—particularly from Black and Asian communities—called out the ad’s imagery for reinforcing tired stereotypes under the guise of vintage flair.
The brand issued a statement within a day: it hadn’t intended harm. It meant to honor history. It just got “the tone wrong.”
But here’s the deeper issue: how does a global brand still get the tone wrong in 2024?
Having written extensively about the interplay between media narratives and public perception, I’ve seen this pattern before.
The crisis isn’t just about what was shown. It’s about who wasn’t in the room to say, “This won’t land the way you think.”
In the UK, where many legacy media companies still shape their strategies from an overwhelmingly homogenous creative base, this remains a cultural blind spot.
What this controversy truly reveals is a contradiction: brands use the language of inclusion, but their process for producing messages often excludes the very people they claim to champion.
When Progress Becomes Optics
Public outrage was swift—but it was also shallow.
Mainstream coverage leaned on click-generating outrage. “Heinz’s Racial Misstep,” “Vintage Look, Colonial Undertone,” “Who Let This Ad Happen?”—these were headlines designed to provoke, not explain.
But media amplification often masks the real problem.
What starts as a moment for honest introspection often becomes a binary debate: Was this ad offensive or not? Should the brand be canceled or forgiven?
When analyzing media narratives around controversial campaigns, I’ve noticed a pattern: the most important question—how was this approved in the first place?—rarely gets asked.
This isn’t about one image or one creative director. It’s about a system that’s calibrated to avoid friction rather than to seek truth.
Focus groups are chosen for convenience. Creative teams move fast to meet campaign deadlines.
And too often, inclusion becomes a checklist, not a worldview.
The result? Marketing that looks diverse in casting but still centers an outdated perspective.
This isn’t just a Heinz issue. We’ve seen similar moments with luxury fashion houses, streaming services, even government PSAs.
Brands follow cultural trends without embedding cultural intelligence.
In an attention economy, the pressure to provoke outweighs the discipline to reflect.
The Truth Behind the Misfire
The harm isn’t always in the intention—it’s in the absences. If no one at the table could see the problem, then the table needs to change.
Rebuilding from the Inside Out
Some brands are starting to listen.
After the backlash, Heinz announced that it would re-evaluate its global creative review process and include more culturally informed advisors.
It’s a step—but only that.
In recent months, we’ve seen better examples.
In the wake of similar missteps, Ben & Jerry’s partnered with external social justice consultants to vet content before production.
Netflix UK invited BIPOC script consultants into early-stage creative workshops—not just to review content, but to shape it.
These moves work not because they appease criticism but because they reflect a shift from reactive messaging to participatory storytelling.
It’s time we ask harder questions in the room where the message is made:
- Who are we centering in this story?
- Who might experience this differently?
- Is diversity embedded in our process—or applied as a filter after?
I’ve observed in my research on digital well-being that audiences don’t simply want to see themselves in content.
They want to feel that they were considered in its creation.
In a media-saturated world, representation that lacks integrity doesn’t build trust, it erodes it.
The future of advertising won’t be won by brands that “mean well.” It will be led by those who build the conditions for meaning to emerge in the first place—by creating space for different voices, worldviews, and lived truths to guide the work.
Not just at the final sign-off.
But from the very first brief.
