FairlifeFirst of all, yes, Coca-Cola is now selling milk. Well, kinda.
The beverage corporation got into a joint venture with fairlife, a "premium" milk that contains 50 percent more protein, 30 percent more calcium, and half the sugar of average cartons you'll find in the supermarket. However, it wasn't the exceptional nutritional facts that made headlines—it was their ads.
Fairlife released a series of ads that featured naked women posing as pin-up girls with nothing but—wait for it—milk covering their naughty parts. One even had a woman standing on the scale. Yeeeeah, that didn't sit well with people.
In fact, Twitter users deemed the ads as "sexist."
#EverydaySexism Coca Cola is selling milk now, that's bad enough. But WHO could have approved these dreadful adverts? pic.twitter.com/d4KUedaMrc
? Alison Begas (@kamfinsa) November 26, 2014In case you missed: ads for Coke's new milk brand show nude women, covered in milk, being weighed. #everydaysexism pic.twitter.com/2Zcvd2RakE
? dan barker (@danbarker) November 26, 2014. @CocaCola CEO Muhtar Kent should take his clothes off, cover himself in milk & stand on a scale to shill his new product.
? Brooklyn Middleton (@BklynMiddleton) December 2, 2014However, fairlife clearly caught wind of the backlash and wanted to set the record straight.
Not only did the milk company explain that these ads were part of a test launch that ended in June, but they revealed that these images will not be used for the national campaign in a post published on their website.
"In June, we concluded two test markets in Denver and Minneapolis. The test markets allowed fairlife to learn what was working and what we needed to improve for the upcoming national launch. So you'll see all new packaging and new advertising once we launch. The 'pin-ups' advertising may have been eye-catching, but we're taking a totally new approach…that campaign was retired in June and we're super excited about what's to come…"