I try to stay plugged in, but since I’ve only lived in the South or the Northeast, I don’t always get the latest news from California. Specifically, I didn’t know about the California Milk Advisory Board’s “Happy Cow” campaign until this afternoon, when I watched last night’s episode of The Amazing Race. (Good for you, Mel and Mike!)
Around the middle of the episode, I saw this:
After the jump, I’ll analyze this spot, and I’ll dig into the controversial campaign it belongs to. If you’re already familiar with this stuff, then please join the discussion. I need your input!
Let me start with the assertion that this ad is phenomenally effective.
First, it’s an attention-grabber, if only because it’s so weird. It’s like a kiddie version of a Quentin Tarantino film, with its mash-up of Asian and Californian cultures and its knowingly stilted subtitles. Can’t you picture Lucy Liu’s character in Kill Bill talking about the “never-ending fields of happiness and joy” before she bites into an In ‘n Out burger and hurs a sword at someone? The self-conscious weirdness would be the same.
The ad also works because it courts offensiveness (which I was thinking about last week, too). An ethnic animal with a mangled accent is questionable, since it asks us to laugh at the idea of funny-funny foreigners who don’t speak ‘Merican very well, but in a sea of eye-glazing commercials, that audacity makes the spot stand-out. Personally, I had to watch it again just to make sure I’d seen what I thought I saw, and now I’m aware of a campaign that has been running in some form for eight years. I’ve got to respect an ad that can pull me into the game so late.
The ad’s success extends beyond itself, however. Because it interested me, I researched the “happy cow” campaign, and I discovered that PETA (home of the veggie sex ad) sued the California Milk Advisory Board in 2002 for false advertising, claiming that contrary to the “happy cow” image, the state’s dairy cows are actually mistreated and forced to live in deplorable conditions. (This releated to an earlier batch of promos, well before the Korean cow.)
And I know, I know… a hysterical lawsuit from PETA is like a pithy comment from Dorothy Parker, but I’m interested by the reason this case was thrown out. in 2005, San Francisco’s 1st District Court of Appeals claimed that California’s government agencies are immune from truth-in-advertising laws. Stephanie Yee, who repped the government in the lawsuit, said, “The court was correct…[in] recognizing the state’s ability to promote its economy even if somebody might disagree with what the state says.”
Does anyone know more about this issue? On one hand, it’s troubling to think the state of California doesn’t have to be accountable for its advertising, but on the other, it seems PETA could have taken other, more appropriate routes to challenge the commercials.
But none of this—PETA’s lawsuit, my deepening research—would have happened if the “Happy Cow” campaign weren’t so effective. My personal response to the Korean Cow is clearly just the latest of many strong reactions, and again, I have to respect any campaign that gets that kind of traction.
What are your thoughts on this ad or the “Happy Cow” campaign in general?
6 responses so far ↓
1 babacapra // Feb 23, 2009 at 7:24 pm
I remember this ad campaign from back when they were talking about the great weather in California, which makes for happy cows, which makes for great cheese . . . What? As opposed to, say, all the cheese from Wisconsin, and a little place you may have heard of called Switzerland, where it’s stupid snowy a lot of the time? Yeah, no good cheese there.
2 Beth // Feb 23, 2009 at 8:51 pm
There are a bunch of these with cows from all different places. There’s also a British cow lost in a fog bank who wants to come to sunny California, and another Midwestern cow, etc. etc. It’s sort of a take on America’s Next Top Model, vote for the next California Happy Cow.
The whole Happy Cow thing has been running in one form or another for years out here. Most of them are really funny and clever. Some of them have somehow dealt with Wisconsin cows wanting to leave the snow to come to sunny CA, but there’s also a running plot line of sorts dealing with two cows and two bulls.
I don’t know a whole lot about the lawsuit except the main argument lay in the fact that the commercials are from the Diary Board rather than an individual farm, so as far as how individual cows are treated isn’t really the point because it’s about the overall industry; and even if it were an individual farm, as long as the farm is following all federal and local regulations, PETA doesn’t really have a leg to stand on legally (regardless of if anyone thinks the regulations are strict enough for the cows to be “happy,” that’s another argument all together and I’m not about to open that can of worms.).
Anyhoo, more Happy Cows, to give you an idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8-zfIlDwY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up880afV_qs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=samAvQjgzL4&feature=related
More of the audition cows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-XuQeOAJlQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txzFdI9ic0
3 Niki // Feb 24, 2009 at 7:30 am
While this particular commercial certainly caught my attention during the amazing race (and I am familiar with the past commercials), I have never found this series of commercials to be effective in that I feel absolutely no desire to seek out cheese/dairy products from California nor do I actually believe that dairy cows would prefer to live there. (As much as it pains me to agree with PETA, the stench from the dairies near my college in southern CA belies the idea that these are free-roaming, sunshine enjoying cows.)
4 ferretrick // Feb 24, 2009 at 9:50 am
“An ethnic animal with a mangled accent is questionable, since it asks us to laugh at the idea of funny-funny foreigners who don’t speak ‘Merican very well, but in a sea of eye-glazing commercials, that audacity makes the spot stand-out.”
It does, but isn’t it ironic that the ad invites us to laugh at funny foreigners accents, on a show where many, many contestants seem to think that every person in the world should speak English, “rapido” is the universal word for fast, and adding an o to the end of a word translates it to Spanish? Many, many times the Amazing Race has showen us why the phrase Ugly American exists; its interesting that the advertising now illustrates that point, too.
5 Mark Blankenship // Feb 24, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Excellent insight, Ferretrick. I’ve been noticing in this season, that no matter the country, some of the racers say “Ciao” as they’re running from the foreigners who have helped them. (Also, I noticed that one guy mispronounced “Zurich.”)
Beth, thanks for the links. God help me, but I think some of those are really cute.
And Niki, thanks for the tip about the smell of those dairy farms.
6 rachel // Mar 3, 2009 at 7:54 pm
I am using the “happy cow” ads as the subject of my rhetorical analysis for a comp. class. I am sure the barns are not five star quality but they are barns! I doubt the barns in Wisconsin on any larger farm are much different. A factory farm is a factory farm, regardless of time zones. I actually like the bulls attempts at “hitting” on the cows and the subsequent brush off. And the pig trying to join the herd is just funny. Could be the next gig for Dr. Phil, figuring out exactly what happened in that poor pigs life for him to have cow envy!! I do not advocate mistreatment of animals or people for that matter but I do enjoy a chessey commercial occasionally
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