River Island's print ads celebrate diverse, different families

British fashion brand River Island got a lot of love on social media last September with a campaign featuring disabled models. Now, it's back promoting inclusivity once again with a campaign that focuses on different kinds of family.

New ads, by agency Studio Blvd, depict families with same sex couples -- two men with a baby, two women with a toddler -- as well as a group of kids, one of whom has Down's Syndrome. All carry the hashtag #ThisIsFamily. 

According to the brand, the campaign celebrates the diversity of families, while challenging the notion of what "family" means in 2019. It points out that while traditional nuclear family now represents less than one-third of families in the UK, with blended families, non-biological families, multi-ethnic families, same-sex parent families and single-person families having grown significantly, brands rarely represent families other than the traditional nuclear model.

Alistair Green, chief strategy officer at Studio Blvd, says: “As a single dad I know firsthand how it feels to be excluded from the traditional family paradigm, but myself and my two sons are as much a family as any other. The #ThisIsFamily campaign we created for River Island celebrates my family and many others that are nearly always overlooked.”

The campaign is running on social and digital channels as well as in-store.