Coke Makes Milk, Sells Out Women
Since approximately the beginning of time, women’s bodies have been used to sell everything. From clothing to food to cars to animal welfare- you name it, the female form has been splashed across billboards, screens and magazines to entice consumers to part with their pennies.
Coca-Cola Amatil, known best for soft drinks like Coke, is branching into dairy with it’s new product, Fairlife Milk, which will cost double the price of regular milk and is high protein, lactose free something something…sorry, got distracted by the ads:
The ad campaign was apparently inspired by an artist who did a series of pin-up girl type portraits “dressed” in milk. Right-o. But what have pin-up girls actually got to do with drinking milk?
I’m particularly curious about the middle image above. A woman with a waist that appears to be thinner than her face is perched on the scales, looking horrified. I’m hoping this is because of the blow-out that seems to be occurring with the back of her milk-frock and not because they’re trying to imply that she has weight to lose.
Anyway, I went along to the Fairlife website to see what they had to say. This line in particular made me chuckle:
We knew that our fairlife purely nutritious milk was going to be a game changer in the milk category and we believed that our unique milk deserved an equally unique marketing campaign when we tested the product six months ago in Denver and Minneapolis.
They think using women’s bodies to sell a product is unique and innovative? You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s not new, it’s not unique and it sure isn’t innovative. I’d say it’s possibly the laziest form advertising and I wrote about it some time back.
Take a product, slap it on, near or under a barely clad woman. Done. Sell Coke.
The response to this campaign, surprisingly enough, hasn’t been positive. It seems plenty of people saw through all that “innovation” pretty easily and recognised it for the regurgitated sexist crap that it is.
Coke’s new ad campaign for its #fairlife milk is pretty weird and sexist http://t.co/9kNa4cOduf pic.twitter.com/CMKDc9rcys
— Lynton Grace (@LyntonGrace)
As if marketing processed milk as #healthy and #sustainable isn’t bad enough Coke’s new #Fairlife ad is a sexist joke http://t.co/eup7i9VA7v
— Ylva Johannesson (@ylva_j)
.@CocaCola‘s ad for their new kind of milk also doubles as a great infographic for how not to make an ad. #fairlife pic.twitter.com/cBQcx0IaOF
— Bailey (@bpstaff)
I almost can’t decide what’s more upsetting: the fact that Coca Cola is now making milk or their sexist ads for it pic.twitter.com/cHf5HzXY4N
— Worrier Princess (@the_whole_half)
lol at coca cola amatil getting into the dairy industry… and doing a very sexist job at promoting their products.
— Leann (@intuitivehearts)
Women’s naked bodies used as prop by Coca Cola to sell MILK. Unoriginal & tediously sexist http://t.co/j51nf609WE pic.twitter.com/rjIL9V8GT9
— Sarah (@mulheron81)
Thankfully, it would appear that they aren’t going to go any further with this particular campaign. This from their website:
Will You Be Using This Campaign Going Forward?
No. The feedback that we received from the good folks in Minneapolis and Denver was that they loved the milk, but the campaign was less compelling. So going forward we’ve got other cool advertisements coming your way!
Is “less compelling” code for “horribly sexist and objectifies women”?
What I don’t get is why they took this direction in the first place. This is part of the company that sells the most popular soft drink in the world so how did they end up so out of touch?
The company slogan is “We Believe In Better” and truly, I do. I believe in much better. Like advertising that doesn’t need to exploit or objectify women to sell stuff.
Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT
