In the grand marketplace of life, there are some aisles relatively free of dad exclusion.

True, we’ve seen marketers spoil campaigns for all kind of products and services, but we know we’ll especially find blunders, for example, with those items revolving around child rearing: lunch items, diapers, juice boxes, cereal.

It’s not that we’re giving these companies a free pass, it’s just that our expectations are so low. Put another way, you expect to see garbage in a landfill; anything else is a surprise.

But then there are products that are hard to mess up. I mean, how could any organization who promotes fertilizer really be guilty of dad exclusion? We’re talking fertilizer!

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Nutrients for Life Foundation, a group whose mission is to “provide science-based information that helps educate people about the beneficial role of fertilizer.”

It seems like an admirable group, and their recipe card is actually quite novel in how it reminds us that fertilizer is needed to help the apples (used in the recipe) grow.

The truth is that NFLF probably meant no harm. This isn’t Kix cereal or Jif Peanut Butter, who actively make no bones about who they want to buy their product.

However, their cute message to “thank mom for the cookies” continues to perpetuate an old-fashioned stereotype, a myth that the kitchen is a place only for mothers (an assertion I’m sure many moms would dislike), and thus dads get excluded in the process.

NFLF’s website boldly proclaims that “Growth Begins with Education,” and thankfully dadmarketing believes the same: growth among marketers for dad inclusion begins with educating them about why this topic is so important.

The good news is that NFLF seems to know a thing or two about recipes, and how you can tinker with the formula to make it even better. The same applies to marketing.

What do you say NFLF?