Alright! I know everybody’s hot: everybody’s got Rock n’ Roll, um, whatever you need milk for, so let’s call out White Gold! (That’s a joke on the intro from “Calling Dr. Love” on KISS Alive II, for those of you who are lost.) Anyway, I hope everybody remembers these ridiculous ads for milk from ~2008-2010 where some silly ‘70s arena rock star wannabe shills for milk. (I don’t know how anyone could forget them!) This whole thing is hilarious and perhaps even inappropriate to the extreme, but maybe that’s why I like it so much: It seems like a joke ad for milk, but it’s real! But it uses so much double-entendre stuff and suggestiveness in the campaign, which is perfectly appropriate for the rock star milieu, but isn’t milk mostly intended for children? I know everyone can drink it, but mostly it’s important for kids to drink it. The funny thing is, I’m not sure this ad is the best way to target them, although I could be wrong. Here’s what I mean:
Most kids today don’t think of rock stars like this guy is pretending to be as their heroes, so much as the has-been musicians on “golden oldies” records. Rock n’ Roll isn’t even the dominant form of music anymore: that would be Hip Hop (and Country). (Maybe they could get some Country Music star to sing about how much they're in love with cows for making milk, and show them suggestively milking cows on a farm; or maybe they could get a white rapper called “Ice Milk” to rap about milk? No? I didn’t think so. {But what about having an ad campaign with a rapper called “Ice Cream”? I heard kids just love Ice Cream! Then they could have a commercial showing an Ice Cream rap concert, where all the fans are screaming kids, and they could say the kids “all scream for Ice Cream”! Now that might actually work!}) So these ads seem to me like if The Coasters or Jerry Lee Lewis were doing ads for milk when I was a kid: I knew who they were, kind of, but they were from my parents’ era, and as such, they would seem just as lame when advocating for dietary recommendations. See what I mean? But kids’ parents are mostly about the right age to maybe respond to these White Gold ads, although I would think they’d already know about the giving-their-kids-milk-to-drink thing. Unless hippies are now demanding only vegan beverages for children nowadays, which wouldn’t be surprising, if true. (But it would be very bad for growing children to eat a vegan diet!).
But seriously, look at this guy! He’s supposedly pouring milk from his guitar into someone’s cereal bowl (in the flagship ad of this campaign), but he’s missing the bowl and pouring it all over the table! But even so, somehow that seems so much more appropriate for a rock star to do, doesn’t it? Maybe he should pour his guitar’s milk into a TV set and short it all out, knocking power out for the whole building (except for his guitar, that is, which I heard is milk-powered!), and then throw the TV set out the window! (Then he could claim Led Zeppelin learned that from him!) And then he could kick down every door in a hotel or apartment complex and force-feed milk to everyone who is tired but can’t sleep (especially if they’re lactose intolerant!). And then he could dynamite the company that makes that powdered coffee creamer stuff for some music video, and as its dazed employees run out screaming and injured, he could cure them all on the spot with the miraculous healing properties of milk! (Full disclosure: milk does not heal all catastrophic traumatic injuries; especially if you’re naughty and make fake powdered “creamer” products that compete with milk.)
Oh, but I always wanted him to write a song about how milk is too powerful for cereal to stay crispy in it, and how milk cannot help but dominate all pansy-assed cereal and turn it to mush in its awesome presence! Oh, and then he could explain in another song about how milk hates joggers, and that’s why it always gives people stomach cramps when they run after drinking it. Oh, and how about a ballad about how milk is very jealous of those who drink it, so when they stay away too long, it turns sour to punish them. (Etc.)
But I can joke all I want to, for sadly this ad campaign has gone the way of the dinosaur. I heard this guy O.D.’ed on milk! It’s sad, really. They start small, just eating their cereal with milk. Oh, but then they’re putting it in their tea and coffee (!). And when you try to tell them they might have a problem, they just laugh in your face! Oh, but then they’re drinking it out of the carton! Oh, for shame! Surely this would be “rock bottom” for most people (especially appropriate for a “rock star”!); but for these milk maniacs, these dairy druggies: they just can’t get enough! And the next thing you know, they’re free-basing it, or whatever you call it when someone heats milk up in a pan and drinks it before bed. Oh, the humanity! Well, at least White Gold has glommed his last goblet of milk from this globe! And when the truth comes out, I just hope the milk pushers have the courage to admit the truth of milk's dangerous addictiveness (or at least have plausible deniability).
Wow, the guys who got this campaign sold to the milkmen (the California Milk Processor Board, that is) must have “made them an offer they couldn’t refuse” or something: How else would anyone have approved this stuff? It’s hilarious, and I thank them for approving this, but did it help sell milk? I doubt it! It was wonderfully silly though, and stoned people everywhere must have thought they had died and gone to munchy heaven. (Or is that a pizza ad?) There are shots in these ads where White Gold takes a drink of milk from his guitar, and it looks like he’s taking a bong hit (as well as other suggestive silliness).
Here’s the flagship ad for this ridiculous campaign for milk:
And here are some of the shorter TV spots:
And here’s the “music video” for another milk-related rock anthem:
Oh, rarely have I thought anything was so stupid and great at the same time! It’s teeth-tacular! It’s nail-scratchical! It’s milkitastical! It’s super-galactical! And it’s also intellectually-challenged (but in a good way!).
Oh, and here’s a poster for your children’s walls:
