On my way into work this morning, as I tried to shake off the dull lethargy that frequently grips me in the hours before noon, I saw a giant version of this on the back of a bus:
Now much as I often find advertising (large or small) vaguely upsetting and oppressive, I still like to think of myself as someone who can “decode” its meaning(s). Actually, this is probably why I find it upsetting and oppressive.
I usually know which buttons it's attempting to press, which inadequacies it's trying to prey upon, which longings and lusts it's pandering to etc. In the case of the above image, however, I'm at something of a loss. What exactly is the (esoteric) National Dairy Council trying to say?
Milk will protect you from (or make you more attractive to) sexy cyborgs from the future? Milk, while undoubtedly natural, may turn your hair pink and render you a drooling zombie? Milk - it'll rock your world…like a big scary floating head in a void?
Answers please.
That ad was on the back of one of the Sunday paper magazines, and has been puzzling me for the past few days. I /think/ the Dairy Council might be trying to say that pink hair is unnatural, unlike milk… but I think they’re also failing miserably. Whenever the ad catches my eye, I assume it’s a perfume ad or something similar (and wouldn’t that be nice, using milk as a perfume)…
July 16th, 2008 at 4:07 pmI get annoyed at ads too, because part of the point of them is to get people thinking, now what’s the point of this, then? So a lot of them entail some degree of polysemy.
The first thing that occurred to me was the protection thing: look at the way the white text - signifying milk - imposes itself as a barrier between the viewer the shock of pink hair, i.e. whatever there is in the world that is unnatural, milk will protect you from it.
And then I thought: maybe the connoted message is really ‘buy more milk lads, and then you’ll be able to blow the load in this invitingly exotic girl’s face’.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:15 pmHeh. Looks like some ironic take on those “purer than you” bottled water ads.
Still, it is nice to see Nothing getting a compliment after all that he has done for the world of advertising. Over the years, if he has not been getting our clothes whiter, then he’s been killing germs better. Otherwise, he was there quickly quenching our thirst or relieving our pain symptoms.
What a legend!
July 16th, 2008 at 5:02 pmCatherine, You might be onto something. Pink hair & forced “sexiness” = artificial. Milk = Honest & natural. A calcium rich remedy for all of modern life’s phoneyness. It’s still bonkers though.
And what’s more dangerous (in these times of economic collapse) than pink hair, Hugh? Actually a good angle (for the panicky Irish market) would have been “Drink Milk - It’ll save your children from penury”.
Not so sure yer one is too appealing to lads who’re looking to blow loads. Unless they’re the kind who get off on cold and dominant robotic goddesses. It’s like a slice of lacto-techno porn.
Longman, The “nothingness” that surrounds her strange head is undoubtedly pure and natural alright. Whether it’s as natural as milk is another matter. Not sure what nutrients you get from nothing either (or ether).
July 16th, 2008 at 9:58 pmFústar,
I saw the ad and I hate it. Like Hugh Green, I hate it because it tries to make me think and it succeeds. As usual, it is an example of a product being portrayed as something it is not. I can just see the button-brained exec saying, “Let’s make milk SEXY!” - surrounded by like no-minded sycophants: ‘he’s so daring, so edgey’ so at home in the vapid existence he is selling as a way of life. “And still they gazed and still the wonder grew…” I mean, it’s milk! It’s just fvkin milk! MILK!
I also got some of Catherine’s pink-hair unnatural/milk natural message too. I wish I could have Longman Oz’s take on how the ad. extols the virtues of nothing: you have a beautiful worldview Longman Oz!
On one level it seemed to evoke images of posters for the film ‘A Clockwork Orange’, the dark, the odd triangular thing to the bottom right (why this rings a bell do not ask me), the menacing stare and, of course, milk - didn’t they drink milk in the film? Sorry to say, I haven’t read the book.
It’s still a godawful ad, I hate it more now for having taken time to think about it.
Damn you button-brained exec! Damn you Fústar!
July 17th, 2008 at 10:12 amIf I worked in advertising I’d spend my days punching myself in the head in fits of self-loathing (weeping and licking up the blood as it streamed down my face). Actually, I’d more likely sit high-fiving myself in an ecstasy of self-satisfaction.
As for the milk - yes it was indeed the drink of choice in Clockwork Orange (and stuffed full of drugs I recall). Good spot, Cnuimh. So what message are we left with now?
“Milk - it’s fuel for ultraviolence”?
“Milk it’s choodessny for your guttiwutts”?
July 17th, 2008 at 11:57 amMilk - the freshest cheese that you will ever enjoy!
Milk - any udder drink will do.
Milk - the drink of champions! (Warning - may contain traces of anabolic steroids)
July 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pmSo…it’s not an add for the new series of Battlestar Gallactica then? Oops!
July 18th, 2008 at 10:50 amNow I know what it reminded me of. This could well turn out to be the most conceptually mish-mashed ad in recent “back of the bus” history.
Perhaps “Nothing’s as Natural as Milk” is some sort of inter-Cylon code (allowing them to identify each other).
Or it could be some sort of obscure Cylon retort.
“You’re nothing but a damn machine!”
“Well…nothing’s as natural as milk…”
“Er…”
July 18th, 2008 at 11:26 amI’m convinced by the Cylons angle.
So I think the message we have is this.
On the one hand we have Milk, which is the Platonic ideal of Natural.
On the other hand we have everything else in all possible universes, including those we can imagine in fiction.
This includes sexy pink-haired Cylons.
So, set in opposition to each other are-
Milk: the epitome of Natural
Sexy Pink-Haired Cylons: The very essence of unnatural.
It all seems obvious to me at a glance.
Though in a war beween Cylons and Milk, I’m not sure how long Milk will hold out. Being merely an inert liquid instead of a killer robot.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:38 amOh, its for milk. I actually thought it was Jonathan Rhys Meyers advertising the ‘camped-up’ stage version of The Tudors.
July 26th, 2008 at 3:35 pmHeh, I prefer this one.
July 28th, 2008 at 10:32 pmJo, Organic tits are so, like, over. We’re into the brave new world of cyborgian robo-sex now. This ad is but the start.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:00 am