Dad helps in kitchen, mobiles at the table ... Oxo family get a 2016 makeover
FOR decades the Oxo mum was a symbol of middle class lifestyle as she served up traditional dinners to her family.
But as the stock cube adverts return to our TV screens, she has a new rival – Oxo dad.
In a bid to portray the modern family, bosses of the brand want to highlight how parents now share cooking duties.
They also wanted to show the ‘chaotic elements of modern life’ and the new adverts, which air tonight, replace the image of a family sitting quietly round the table with teenagers moaning and playing on mobile phones.
The more hectic scenes also feature the family’s pet rabbit, Mr Jefferson.
The series of commercials began in 1958 and their popularity grew in the 80s and 90s when Lynda Bellingham played the Oxo mum. But they stopped in 1999 over fears they no longer reflected modern life. Oxo said the idea of a mother as ‘the head of the kitchen’ was outdated – while both parents cooking shows ‘the power of togetherness’.
The new adverts reveal the country’s changing tastes as well as their different mealtime habits. While the old family tucked into traditional meals of meat, vegetables and gravy, the modern parents, played by Morag Peacock and Myles Keogh, serve up Italian-style meatballs with spaghetti or a Moroccan chicken stew to their three children.
Perhaps the biggest change is the presence of phones at the table. In the first ‘episode’ stroppy teenager Lucy brings her friend Tiana home for dinner who, instead of thanking her hosts, shows her approval of the meal by taking a picture on her phone and posting it online.
The brand used research showing that 29 per cent of fathers now take on sole responsibility for cooking while 87 per cent help to prepare meals.
Helen Touchais, of Premier Foods, which owns Oxo, said family dynamics are ‘often very different’, partly due to divorce rates and the rise of working mothers. But she said: ‘The central idea of family is still very resonant for people in the UK and cooking is a really important way of bringing them all together.’