South Korea’s leading milk producer, Seoul Dairy Cooperative, has found itself in hot water after releasing an ad that depicts women as cows. It was forced to remove the clip from the internet and apologize.
The controversial video, which has since been re-uploaded by the public, was made to promote the company’s flagship brand, Seoul Milk. It shows a man walking through the woods with a large camera. He eventually reaches a meadow where he films a group of beautiful women in white clothes doing yoga in the lush grass and drinking water from a spring. But the cameraman accidentally steps on a twig, and with the cracking sound, all the ladies suddenly turn into cows.
The clip concludes with the slogan: “Clean water, organic feed, 100% pure Seoul Milk. Organic milk from an organic ranch in the pleasant nature of Cheongyang.”
The video was uploaded online in late November and swiftly went viral, but for all the wrong reasons.
South Korean viewers were outraged by the ad, with one proclaiming on the firm’s Instagram page: “I will never drink Seoul Milk again.”
The sentiment was shared by others as they blamed Seoul Dairy of comparing women to animals, objectifying them and promoting the illegal practice of men secretly filming women, known as ‘molka,’ which became a huge problem in South Korea in recent years.
The outcry prompted Seoul Dairy to delete the clip from its official pages and “sincerely apologize to everyone, who felt uncomfortable with the milk commercial.”
“We are accepting this matter seriously and will conduct an internal review,” the company said in a statement on December, 8.
It’s not the first time Seoul Dairy has sparked controversy with its promo activities. Back in 2003, several of the firm’s top official were fined for obscenity after staging a live event that featured naked models scraping yogurt off each other’s bodies on stage.
