Korean Ad Depicts Women as Cows

Seoul Milk, Korea's leading dairy product brand, faced a gargantuan backlash from the public over a controversial online ad that depicts women as cows. 

The blurb uploaded on Seoul Milk's official YouTube channel on November 29 and now taken down, shows a male hiker stumbling upon a group of women practicing yoga outdoors. 

The hiker secretly films them – and one woman was captured drinking water from a leaf. 

At that moment, the outdoorsman accidentally steps on a branch, and the startled women turn into dairy cows in the blink of an eye.

The video clip has drawn a wave of strong criticism from the public, saying it's "disgusting" how it compares women to cows and that the man with the camera reminds them of the hidden spycam crimes rampant in Korea in recent years. 

The commercial illustrates that South Korea's gender sensitivity is still at a very low level. 

Anyway, Seoul Milk took down the video and posted an apology on their website on December 08.

Marketing is not an invitation to be overly clever. If you fall into the cleverness trap, it's because you don't realize that people remember the cleverest part of the marketing, even though it's your “offer” they should remember. 

Cleverness is a marketing vampire, sucking attention away from your offer!