Usually, when a television commercial causes a stir, it's because there's something salacious or controversial about it. But right now, the commercial on the airwaves that's inspired the most outsized response is... a joke about milk.
The drama involves a commercial for the USDA's Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) — which Vox describes as the "quasi-governmental dairy industry organization" that was responsible for the famous "got milk?" ad campaign — in which Aubrey Plaza plays the fake spokesperson for a nondairy brand called Wood Milk. The joke is that this brand of plant-based milk is made with wood, which means that it tastes gross. It's a direct jab at alternative milks like oat and almond, both of which MilkPEP says are nutritionally inferior to cow's milk and taste worse. A complaint filed in May by the nonprofit advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, though, alleges that this latest pro-dairy campaign goes too far, perhaps in violation of federal laws intended to prevent the "disparaging" of competing products.
But it's an interesting position for the organization to take, considering that plant milk brands have often engaged in similar attacks on the healthfulness and sustainability of cow's milk. At present, Oatly maintains multiple pages on its website to bust "milk myths," and has used its Instagram account to criticize government subsidies that make dairy more accessible to schoolchildren than plant-based options in Europe. Silk's new dairy-free offering Nextmilk cheekily nodded to the organization's "got milk?" campaign in its launch ads with a 2023 take on those classic milk mustaches.
It makes sense that these companies are so dead-set on slamming their competitors given that they're all vying for the largest share of a multibillion-dollar industry. But by and large, nobody wants to wade through this sea of aggressive ad campaigns when they're wandering down the milk aisle. Whether you buy almond milk because you think it's better for the environment, or stick to dairy because you prefer the taste, or choose your milk according to your medical circumstances or religious beliefs, there's always going to be someone telling you that you're making the wrong choice.
It also doesn't help that there are so many different companies, each pushing their own profit agenda. Their concerns about the environment and your health are largely performative. Of course, the almond milk companies don't want you to think about how much water is needed in drought-plagued California to grow its most essential ingredient, and the dairy industry doesn't want you to think too hard about how it treats the animals that are its literal cash cows. No one here has a whole lot of moral high ground, even as they insist that their product is the most virtuous.
And whether or not the Wood Milk campaign is actually in violation of federal law, it is most definitely annoying. Plant-based milk tastes fine, it's not overall any more or less nutritious than cow's milk, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to avoid the nightmare that is the American dairy production system. But it's also fine to want to pour some regular old 2 percent into your coffee every morning and completely ignore these obnoxious ad campaigns intended to make you feel guilty about something as morally neutral as milk. — Amy McCarthy, Eater staff writer
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