• by Larissa Faw , February 19, 2021

Startup Yumi is stepping up its visibility with a high-profile new hire responsible for the baby food brand’s first brand campaign.

Creative director Thomas Mastorakos is tasked with leading the new direction. He recently served in the same role for musician and artist Frank Ocean, and has previously worked with Kanye West. He joined Yumi to “inspire” a cultural movement and work with a brand that resonates with a new generation of parents seeking to raise a healthier generation, he says.

As a father, he felt disconnected with more traditional "kids" brands and visual cues, like big bubbly letters, that spoke more to the child than the adult.

Now at Yumi, Mastorakos’ vision unites the idea of the "you" and "me" of Yumi. He sought to create a space that equally resonated with both the child and the modern parent.

The “This Is Now’ campaign is designed to serve as an intimate, crowd-sourced look at what it means to be a parent today and celebrates a new generation of parents’ definition of what food should be.

To film the campaign, Yumi shipped cameras to real families across the country and had them document their everyday lives, against the backdrop of a global pandemic. The resulting images include a single dad from Chicago who is also an activist as well as a child sharing an everyday moment with one of his two moms who is also a goth rockstar.

“Just as our generation is approaching what it means to be a parent with fresh eyes, we're also calling on parents to push ‘baby food’ and ‘kids food’ outside historic definitions,” said Evelyn Rusli, co-founder and president of Yumi. “We shouldn't expect our kids’ first foods to be bland, shelf stable - we should expect it to be freshly made with nutritious ingredients that inspire.”

The media rollout includes physical billboards, digital billboards and wild postings in SF, LA, NYC, all selected because they are the first major distribution markets. Media will appear in additional cities later this month.