Dive Brief:

• Ritz today (Oct. 17) unveiled a multi-channel holiday campaign celebrating the diversity of holiday celebrations and cuisines, according to details shared with Marketing Dive.
• The campaign, “Our Holidays,” features a 15-second campaign spot and a partnership with Bon Appetit featuring a recipe book and a video series exploring how different cultures celebrate the holidays.
• The effort ties into the cracker brand’s overarching “A Taste of Welcome” platform, which is meant to demonstrate inclusivity and commonality through culinary traditions. 

Dive Insight:

Ritz’s diversity-focused campaign hints at the enduring of appeal of inclusivity as a holiday theme for marketers looking to engage consumers, a focus that was also noticed throughout holiday campaigns last year. “Our Holidays” plays off of the brand’s “Taste of Welcome” platform, which in the past has celebrated various elements of diversity in U.S. culture, including LGBTQ+ acceptance, disability inclusion and foster parenting. 

The campaign, created in partnership with The Martin Agency, includes a 15-second spot that joyfully depicts multi-generational families celebrating various holidays. The ad, airing nationally on broadcast and digital channels, was done by enlisting diverse representation throughout the creative process, per release details.

“Culturally distinct celebrations are often overlooked and underrepresented during the holiday season, so it was natural for us to leverage our ‘Taste of Welcome’ values to shine a light on the diversity that defines this special time of year for families across America,” said Mayte Killeen, senior brand manager for Ritz, in a statement.

Additionally, Ritz partnered with agency Spark Foundry, Bon Appetit and chef Marcus Samuelsson to create a cookbook titled “A Taste of Welcome: A Celebration of Food and Culture,” which features stories and recipes from an array of diverse cultures. Available in December, the book can be ordered through the brand’s “A Taste of Welcome” landing page. 

The Ritz and Bon Appetit tie-up also features a three-part video series that highlights three immigrant families, today living in California, Georgia and New York, and their holiday traditions stemming from the Philippines, Nigeria and Azerbaijan. In each segment, a Bon Appetit editor cooks alongside the families and learns their stories. The series will be available beginning Oct. 21 through Bon Appetit’s streaming channel and video platform. 

In addition to playing into its brand platform, the Ritz holiday campaign follows a similar theme to those done by the brand in the past. In 2020, it launched its “Where There’s Love, There’s Family” campaign to spotlight families created beyond blood relatives.