Insight & strategy The approach has proved successful, but one of the executions, featuring two dads and their baby son, hit the headlines after it triggered a wave of homophobic abuse on social media. Sutcliffe is quick to point out that the trolling came from a small minority and that it in no way affected McCains stance. It is our philosophy and commitment to remain representative of modern life and, as such, we have to stand by that, she says. We remain fully supportive of everybody who is part of our advertising and we have to make sure that we are responding to any negative press or feelings in the right way. It has not put anybody off; we are about championing diversity and being on everybodys side. Celebrating difference As the We Are Family campaign evolved, McCain decided to shift the focus from diversity and differences between families, to acknowledging the diversity of viewpoints and differences within families. Sutcliffe says: It was important that we uncover, first hand, what families talk about at home and at mealtimes how these differences emerge and celebrate the emotional impact of these differences. Nations Conversations is not seen as a one-off, but as an ongoing research index to observe, celebrate and better understand families McCain commissioned nationwide quantitative research from OnePoll, which surveyed 3,000 adults to uncover what families talk about at home and highlight the different opinions within households. The Nations Conversations report, published in summer 2019, found that 90% of respondents claim to use dinner time as an opportunity to express differences in opinion on a large variety of issues. More than four-fifths (82%) of those surveyed agreed, or strongly agreed, that its a good thing for families to hold different views and sometimes disagree on things. The work also involved qualitative research with families. McCain used commentary from this research in its 2019 Differences commercial, narrated by Ricky Tomlinson, which sought to celebrate the emotional impact of differences in opinions and behaviour again through the lens of mealtimes. Hirst says the team knew they had it right when they showed an early script and a participant in a focus group got quite animated, saying yes, exactly; my friend is an adoptive parent and, finally, someone is making an ad thats for her. Nations Conversations is not seen as a one-off, but as an ongoing research index that aims to continue to observe, celebrate and better understand families. The thinking is to track ongoing conversations and uncover emerging important issues in families. Inevitably, the intra-family divides over the emotive issue of Brexit was one of the major issues highlighted by the first report, with 70% of respondents saying they had talked about it at the table, making it the main political topic of discussion. The new advertising has delivered commercially and in terms of driving emotional resonance for the McCain brand; it has achieved 79% spontaneous brand awareness, according to Kantar brand tracking. Subconscious approaches McCain has launched cook-from-frozen snacks to tap into the craft beer trend 50 Away from brand communications, the insight and propositions team supports new product development (NPD) and studies consumer shopping behaviour in real and simulated retail environments.