How many contradictions can one company make in a single email?  We came across this promo recently, and it’s hard to decide which of these items offers more incongruity:

• Quoting Ben Franklin – a father – and then saying that its product is a wise choice only for moms?
• Using a quote whose original use employs the word “man,” and then disregarding that same “man” in its promotional hashtag?
• Using the term “kids” in the ad copy instead of just “girls”?  Because after all, El Monterey will eventually disregard the boys (who are among those kids) when they become dads.
• Assuming that Ben Franklin would’ve loved El Monterey burritos, when even as an adult in modern times, he couldn’t have made the pick to buy them.  Clearly, according to El Monterey, it would’ve taken his own mother to choose them in the store for him.

Of course, the startling, underlying theme for El Monterey once again, is that a mother’s place is in the kitchen.  Otherwise, there would be no other reason to continue to snub dads, who certainly must be capable of microwaving a frozen food product.

And also, of course, El Monterey caps off the email promo with its #momwins campaign, which essentially leaves no one as a winner:  mom is typecast as the one who cooks, dad loses by way of exclusion.

The disappointing insistence of this El Monterey old fashioned marketing push leaves us hungry for another burrito maker, one that is thus, all the wiser.