The ad agency that created the famous "Got Milk?" milk promotion campaign is back with a new ad strategy that some say is insulting to women.
The California Milk Processor Board's statewide campaign features radio, TV and Internet ads that suggest that men are the real sufferers of PMS as their wives and girlfriends come under the spell of premenstrual syndrome each month.
The ads encourage women to drink more milk to fend off PMS, because some research suggests that increasing one's intake of calcium and vitamin D can alleviate the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.
Rather than target women, the campaign is directed at men and is entitled "Everything I Do Is Wrong." Its website includes images of sheepish-looking men holding several cartons of milk under such captions as "I apologize for letting you misinterpret was I was saying."
There is also a colour-coded "current global PMS level" and a "mistake verification system" (Every perceived mistake typed into the "verification system" is an actual mistake).
The ad designers, from the agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, say the campaign is meant to turn the tables and look at the "age-old dilemma" of PMS from the point of view of men.
They say it's all meant "to highlight the strain placed on many relationships due to the monthly symptoms of premenstrual syndrome."
But the ads are drawing plenty of criticism, particularly by those who accuse the ad writers of playing on stereotypes of "bitchy," PMS-ing women, and making fun of what is a genuine health condition for many women.
Rebecca Cullers at AdWeek notes the milk board launched a very similar ad campaign in 2005, but this take "presents women as more uncontrollably irrational than ever before!" she writes.
Salon columnist Mary Elizabeth Williams calls the ads sexist, painting women as slaves to their menstrual cycles.
"It speaks directly to that tired old idea that a woman's problem is a man's inconvenience," she wrote this week. "…With its ugly new campaign, the milk board just might find a whole lot of rampaging female consumers suddenly feeling mighty lactose intolerant."
The milk board's executive director, Steve James, defends the campaign, telling The Associated Press that it's not meant to offend women but to poke fun at "how clueless men are in dealing with emotional situations."
In an interview with The New York Times, James says the male focus of the ads is meant to "get attention" and "surprise" consumers.
He admitted "a little trepidation" about the campaign, because talking about PMS can be a "third rail" for marketers, he said.
But he hoped the humour would defuse the criticism, and "allow people to laugh at themselves."
