Harrumph! Dole Fruit Bowl Ads Offend One Million Moms

The public advocacy group One Million Moms (which inflates its membership ten-fold) has a new target: Dole Packaged Foods, who have pushed out a new set of ads that the group finds "highly offensive."

One Million Moms is a division of the American Family Association, which was designated as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2010, reports Right Wing Watch.

The brief spots – there are three – each feature a couple that uses the term "fruit bowls" instead of other terms as to shield the meanings from their children. In one, a 30-something couple use "fruit bowl" instead of curse words; in another an older couple say it in place of sex; and in a third a lesbian couple the term is used to describe the children themselves (very noisy in this spot).

The ads are part of Dole's cheeky ad campaign called "Quaran-Tension," which uses the lockdown for humorous ends.

"But Dole fails miserably at its efforts to be funny," the group says on their website.

"The insinuations and tone in these ads are offensive because of what is represented, and the fact that children actually appear in the commercials is also disturbing. It's sad that a well-known company has made a deliberate decision to produce a controversial commercial instead of a wholesome one," OMM writes.

"One Million Moms finds this marketing campaign highly inappropriate. All three of Dole's fruit bowl ads are irresponsible and tasteless. It is extremely destructive and damaging to impressionable children viewing the commercial. We all know children repeat what they hear."

They also ask readers to sign a petition to boycott Dole products until the ads are withdrawn.

"I am highly offended by Dole's 'fruit bowl' commercials," the petition says. "It is an irresponsible marketing campaign to insinuate profanity, use code words for sex in front of children, and degrade the value of children in an advertisement."

"Foul language, a liberal agenda, and sexual innuendos are not necessary to sell your products."

According to their website, by Friday afternoon, they had more than 10,000 signatures.