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Spoiled? Milk Campaign Pulled
By: Chrissy Hugyez | 07/29/2011
Earlier this month, my colleague Maya Lunnemann wrote this blog post on the new “Everything I do is wrong” milk advertising campaign. Regarding the campaign, she posed the question, “Funny or failure?” Many of the comments suggested failure – and we weren’t the only ones! The campaign has been pulled due to the high criticism. According to a New York Times article, the campaign’s website was slated to run though the end of August, but has been revamped into gotdiscussion.com, which “is intended to foster conversations about the campaign’s premise and approach as well as provide more information about how drinking milk could help ease the symptoms of PMS.”
On the site, the creators offer this statement:
“Over the past couple of weeks, regrettably, some people found our campaign about milk and PMS to be outrageous and misguided – and we apologize to those we offended.
Others thought it funny and educational.
It has opened up a public topic that affects women, of course, but also relationships.
We have reproduced a representative sampling of the reaction here.
Thank you for your comments, pro and con. And for those of you who would like more information about this benefit of milk, we have provided some links below.”
An interesting note about this new campaign is its usage of social media. The revamped website pulls in YouTube clips, links to online news stories about the campaign and features Facebook comments. It seems they have embraced the negative (and some positive) reaction and are giving people a forum to “join the conversation” on their Facebook page and through the creation of a Twitter hashtag (#gotdiscussion).
What do you think about the new direction of the campaign and their use of social media to continue the conversation?
Posted in Digital Communications
comments
Caitlin says:
Tue, August 16, 2011 at 5:30:pm
Failure happens. And these days it can be amplified in the echo chamber of digital media. So it seems sensible for the in-case-of-failure Plan B to include social media that acknowledges what’s already echoing around. Especially if an organization wants to encourage innovation by accepting the possibility of failure. Because failure happens.
Ashlyn Brewer says:
Wed, August 17, 2011 at 10:01:am
Great point, and you’re absolutely right! Sometimes you work hard on something, and at the end of the day, when it’s vetted by the public, it misses the mark. Contingency plans are invaluable in cushioning the blow.
However, it’s also vital that organizations and the communications firms supporting them, work as hard as possible on the front end to prevent releasing campaigns will a high probability of failure. Communications professionals must be prepared to not only be innovative creatives pushing the envelope, but also devil’s advocates, predicting what the critics will say.
Ashlyn Brewer says:
Thu, August 04, 2011 at 2:53:pm
I’m so glad they pulled the campaign. I have to wonder if this was the plan all along, but if it was—I still think it was a bad strategy. I know there’s an old line that all PR is good PR, but we know that’s not true. Insulting your target audience is never a good policy.