USDA’s ‘Wood Milk’ Ads Featuring Aubrey Plaza Accused Of Violating The Law
The Got Milk? campaign’s creators have Got New Beef.
In April, the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Program, or MilkPEP, literally branched out from dairy with a new option for the growing plant-based milk market: ‘Wood Milk’, made from the pulp of trees. The organization spilled great efforts trumpeting this new alternative, and it enlisted deadpan actress and comedian Aubrey Plaza to spread the word about the drink’s goodness.
Wood Milk, however, does not exist. It’s a mockery of the string of non-dairy milk options, like oat milk, rice milk, and cashew milk, that are pouring into shelves. Wood Milk, in fact, comes in a rich variety of choices itself: Original, Hickory, Cherry, Maple, Mahogany, and Oak.
“Is Wood Milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real,” Plaza proclaims in one of the spots, reiterating that the product has no nutritional value. She says this with a milk mustache synonymous with the program’s classic Got Milk? initiative, before asking, “Got wood?”
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On the Wood Milk website, the faux brand—“paid for by America’s Milk Companies”—admits that “Wood Milk is 100% fake and completely made up.” It then asserts that “only dairy milk is real milk.”
A splinter of the creative is real, though, like the organic ‘Got Wood?’ t-shirts retailing on the site for US$20. Wood Milk promises to “[plant] real trees in the ground” from the proceeds made from sales of its merchandise.
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Still, it looks like Wood Milk’s milkers have barked up the wrong tree. The campaign is now being called out for possibly breaking the law, especially since it’s funded by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In an official complaint made to the USDA Office of Inspector General, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) accuses the federal-supported MilkPEP of creating a “viral advertising campaign disparaging plant-based milks.” Such efforts are against US laws that ban federal agricultural marketing from depicting other agricultural products “in a negative light,” the nonprofit adds.
In short, the criticism is that MilkPEP—a promotions arm for the dairy industry that’s backed by the USDA’s checkoff program—cannot disparage other milks for the sake of promoting dairy.
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The Physicians Committee, made up of nearly a million advocates for preventive medicine through better standards in medical research and nutrition, says the Wood Milk initiative makes “false or unwarranted statements” that are “unfair or deceptive” against competing products.
PCRM urges the USDA to immediately pull down the advertisements as well as launch “an investigation into the approval process for, this unlawful advertising campaign.”
[via Tasting Table and Delaware Online, video and images via Wood Milk]
