Seoul Milk Marketing Crisis
Background
In late 2021, Seoul Milk, a South Korean dairy firm, encountered fierce social media backlash for portraying women as cows. The largest dairy brand in South Korea showed a video of a man secretly recording a group of women in a field stretching by a stream, drinking water. As the man gets closer, he accidentally steps on a twig that snaps loudly and the women look up before turning into black and white cows that moo loudly.
Since the marketing department of the company approved the ad, the dairy firm was responsible for the social media crisis. The video was uploaded on November 29, 2021, on the company’s official YouTube channel and removed on December 8, 2021. The 37-second advertisement had a wildlife-style documentary voice-over that described the women’s stress-free life, which included engaging in yoga and drinking water from the stream (Boyle). Seoul Milk claimed that the advertisement sought to promote its milk as organic. However, the harsh social media and public backlash reveal that the conglomerate did not carefully consider the commercial’s sexist undertones.
Avoided or Not?
The crisis could have been avoided if the firm had examined the ad more closely. The public viewed the depiction of women as cows as sexist and misogynistic. Another issue was the secret filming, which is commonly referred to as “molka” (Boyle). Critics revealed their displeasure with the ad and its promotion of secretly filming other people without consent and respect for their privacy. Seoul Milk could have avoided the social media crisis if it had considered the negative connotations of the advertisement.
How Did They Manage?
Seoul Milk released a statement on its official website on December 8, 2021. The firm apologized to the people that were made uncomfortable by the commercial. The conglomerate also accepted its fault in the issue and promised to conduct an internal review and take extra precautions to avoid such an incident in the future. Overall, the ad is an example of the responsibility that companies bear in their marketing campaigns.
