Milk Campaign

Thursday, Bloody Thursday:


The New York Times ran an article yesterday describing a failed advertising campaign run by the California Milk Processor Board that was intended to promote their claim that drinking milk can help alleviate the severity of PMS.   The ads were created by the Milk Board's advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.  You can read the full-text of the article on the New York Times website here.

Kids, these things were called newspapers.

A site was setup at everythingidoiswrong.org, which is no longer active and, based on my searches,  can't be found cached on Google or in the Internet Wayback Machine.  According to the New York Times, "The content of the microsite included 'preapproved apologies' from men to the women in their lives with PMS like 'I’m sorry for the thing or things I did or didn’t do' as well as features like an 'emergency milk locator."


Apparently, a few people found the the concept of an advertising campaign aimed at telling men that the best way to quiet the monthly torrent of incessant criticism coming from the mouths of their bitchy girlfriends is to force feed them milk offensive.  Go figure.

The Milk Board and their ad agency view PMS 

the way I imagine having an episode of 

"Keeping up with the Kardashians" playing out 

in real life inside my home would feel.

Both the California Milk Processors Board and the ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners apologized for the campaign.  But that's not what makes this article noteworthy for me.  The way Steve James, Executive Director of the California Milk Board, phrases his apology in the followings quotes from the New York Times article bothers me (italics below are my edit):


"The goal now is 'to turn down the heat,' Mr. James said. 'There’s no sense in keeping up a Web site that’s like waving a red flag to some people.”

Pad seen here the only thing I could possibly think

of when I read an article about a PMS related

issue that mentions the words "red flag".

"Taking down everythingidoiswrong.org is 'not a failure in any way,' he added. 'I don’t see it as ending it or pulling the plug.”

(Tampon not drawn to scale)

Perhaps Steve James should contain his similes and metaphors to baseball references.  For example instead of "waving a red flag" perhaps he could mention that "it's like the site is being sent down to the minors for retooling".  Instead of describing taking down the site as "pulling the plug" perhaps he could say that they're "trying a different approach at the plate in hopes of hitting one out of the park!"  Using baseball in figurative language is safe and when speaking to men it builds a connection between speaker and audience.  I have no idea what the female equivalent would be but I'm fairly sure that in this case it doesn't have the word "red" in it.

Wealth?  Career?  Firmness of ass?