Bad moove: South Korea’s biggest milk producer pulls ad showing women as cows
Seoul Milk, South Korea’s biggest milk producer, apologises for portraying women as cattle in its new advert, which has since been removed from Youtube.
The video showed women transforming into cows, with a man with a camera looking on in wonder.
“We finally succeeded in capturing them on camera at a pristine location where nature is preserved in its purity,” the voiceover said, with the shot lingering on women who are doing yoga and licking water from leaves.
The minute long clip was boycotted by consumers, who called it sexist and voyeuristic.
In a statement, Seoul Milk said: “We sincerely apologise to everyone who felt uncomfortable with the milk commercial released last month. We are accepting this matter seriously and will conduct an internal review, and take extra care to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. We bow our heads in apology.”
Whilst the video has been removed by the company, it continues to cause backlash on social media.
One Twitter account said: “An ad by Seoul Milk (서울우유) depicting a voyeur filming women — who then turn into cows — has been pulled by the company following outcry. South Korea is the global epicenter of spy cam pornography (몰카). Some women victimized have committed suicide.”
Another said: “What the heck is this. South Korea’s Seoul Milk company made an ad showing a male photographer sneak peeking at women in white clothes doing yoga and drinking dew water. As he attempts to secretly take photo, the women see him and they turn into… cows.”
As the BBC have pointed out, this isn’t the first time Seoul Milk has made headlines. In 2003, the company staged a performance in which nude models sprayed yoghurt at each other, which later meant the marketing department and the models that took part in the event were fined for obscenity.