An advertising campaign for Coca-Cola’s new high-end milk has drawn huge criticism on charge of apparent ‘sexism’, reports Daily Mail. Featuring pictures of naked women dripping in barely-there dresses made of milk, Fairlife is being launched to much fanfare this month in the United States.
The photographs, which appear to be working under the logic that ‘sex sells’, are loosely based on iconic poses from the past, such as Marilyn Monroe’s famous skirt rising in The Seven Year Itch.
Designed to appeal to the health lobby, Fairlife will contains 50 1per cent more protein and half the sugar of milk and accordingly will be priced at twice the normal price.
With falling sales in their traditional soda division, Coca-Cola are pinning a lot on Fairlife, especially on the pin-ups they are using to sell it.
The cheeky and controversial photographs have slogans such as ‘Drink what she’s wearing’, ‘More good, looks good’ and ‘Better milk looks good on you.’
One particular picture has one of the models standing on a set of scales wearing a horrified expression, presumably because she needs to be drinking Fairlife.
We’ll charge twice as much for it as the milk we’re used to buying’, said Sandy Douglas, Coke’s global chief customer officer, to a launch conference last week.
However, the way the women are being represented and used to sell milk has left many on social media annoyed.
One Twitter user, Dan Barker posted, ‘In case you missed: ads for Coke’s new milk brand show nude women, covered in milk, being weighed. #everydaysexism.
Another poster, Rebel Girl UK called the campaign a ‘Sexist rubbish (trash) throwback advertising from Coca-Cola for milk…keep the 70s in the 70s!’
Aneesh Kamat wrote on the social media site, ‘@CocaCola’s newest brand @fairlife has arguably the worst ad campaign I’ve seen. Women dressed in milk? #Fail #RespectWomen #advertising.
Regardless, there is a lot riding on Fairlife for Coca-Cola.
As Americans cut down on unhealthy soft drinks, Coca-Cola has turned to creating a premium type of milk to boost their dwindling profits.
‘It’s basically the premiumization of milk,’ Sandy Douglas, a senior vice-president at Coca-Cola’s North American operation at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer Conference last week.
The company has had success in advertising healthier beverages with their Simply juice line which has done well despite the fruit juice industry starting to slump.
Fruit juices are also packed with sugars and are a major contributor along with soft drinks to childhood obesity.
CBS reports that Coca-Cola advertises Simply juices as being healthier, unsweetened, and never frozen.
Our ambition there is to create the Simply of milk,’ Douglas said of the new product.
American shoppers have flocked towards higher protein products like Yogurt and less are buying items with high sugar contents.
‘Protein is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage category,’ Mike Saint John, president of Coca-Cola North America’s Minute Maid business unit, told the Dairy Today.
Despite the growing popularity of high protein products, Dairy Today reports that one of every two adults doesn’t drink milk at all.
What Coca-Cola aims to do is advertise how Fairlife is healthier than traditional milk because it’s cold-filtered to concentrate protein and remove fat and sugar.
Coca-Cola already sells a protein shake called Core Power which goes through the same filtration process.
In order to build hype around the new milk, Coca-Cola has developed provocative ads which they launched earlier this year in Minnesota of women wearing dresses made from milk, reports Business Insider.
‘Swing into something better,’ says one advertisement picturing a woman in a dress made of milk hanging from a swing.
‘Milk with flair,’ reads another ad picturing a woman in a dress made from milk that resembles an iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in a white dress.
Despite the Milk industry being on the decline, Coca-Cola believes that their premium product equipped with a premium price tag will reel in the cash flow.
‘Now to be clear, we’re going to be investing in the milk business for a while to build the brand so it won’t rain money in the early couple of years,’ Douglas said at last week’s conference.
‘But like Simply, when you do it well, it rains money later.’
-With New Age input
