The dairy group that created the “Got Milk?” campaign is back with a new marketing strategy that already is generating plenty of buzz, reports the Richmond Times Dispatch.
The California Milk Processor Board is urging men to buy more milk for their wives and girlfriends, which the campaign says will help them fend off the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.
But the campaign, launched in California last week, entitled “Everything I Do Is Wrong,” was drawing criticism online for ads saying men are the real PMS sufferers as their wives and girlfriends behave strangely every month.
The campaign’s website also has a color-coded “current global PMS level,” a “video apology enhancer” and a “mistake verification system” wrapped around pictures of puzzled men.
The board’s executive director, Steve James, says of the Internet, radio and billboard campaign, “It is awkward and it is provocative, but once you let the humor in and you start talking about it, we hope it’ll be a healthy thing for couples.”
“It was certainly not meant to be offensive. None of the humor is aimed at women. The humor is aimed at how clueless men are in dealing with emotional situations,” James said.
Through the end of August, billboard ads will appear throughout California showing confused men holding cartons of milk accompanied by tag lines such as “I’m sorry I listened to what you said and NOT what you meant,” or “I apologize for not reading between the RIGHT lines.”
The campaign is based on studies that have found a link between calcium intake and fewer PMS symptoms.
It cites a 2005 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that found calcium improved PMS symptoms in more than 1,000 women.
The board also makes reference to a 1999 study published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition that found calcium could relieve symptoms such as irritability, depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, headache and cramps.
