Thursday, November 1, 2012

Pymes Magazine doesn't know what babies eat


I understand where the idea came from. But the all-male creative team at ADN Comunicación, in Buenos Aires,  don't seem to know the difference between human breastmilk, infant formula, and cow's milk.

While human milk is recognized by all health authorities as the ideal infant food for the first one-two years of life, manufactured formulas are a reasonable substitute. But while many formulas include cow's milk as an ingredient, it is highly processed to extract purified whey and casein as protein sources.

Normal cow's milk is actually bad for babies. From the American National Institutes of Health:

Cow's milk is not recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for children under 1 year old. Infants fed whole cow's milk don't get enough vitamin E, iron, and essential fatty acids. They also get too much protein, sodium, and potassium. These levels may be too high for the infant's system to handle. Also, whole cow's milk protein and fat are more difficult for an infant to digest and absorb.
Cow's milk could actually make a baby quite sick.

You could rationalize that the concept implies that more babies means a need for more formula, which will increase demand for cow's milk. But that's a rather indirect way of communicating the idea.

The other two ads in the series indicate that a much more direct link is intended:

I won't even get in to the other awkwardness here...


...or the fact that nobody has used quills for 200 years or so.

Overall, it's just bad advertising. But bedsides that, it might have unintended negative consequences of making women without good prenatal education think that giving "milk" to their baby is OK. And that's a bad idea.

Let's fix it, shall we?


Yay!

Campaign found on Ads of the World

2 comments:

  1. the copy presents the solution for the images, n'est pas? crying babies need a source of food, better than cow's milk? wings and inkwells do not a pen make? okay, i don't get the afro and ironing one, unless it is that curly hair needs to be straightened by ironing? in each case, they present a problem and a bad solution, and the copy exhorts the reader to be an entrepreneur and come up with a better solution.

    at least that is how it looks like on this screen.

    I-)

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  2. 1- that kid is OVER 1 year old
    2- "nobody has used quills for 200 years or so" really??? OMG!!! no shit... of course man, read the copy for the love of god, is about the first guy who came up with an aidea (that idea)
    3- yes hair / iron (straighten hair) it´s pretty ovbious.
    and finally and my favourite 4- where are your ads? im shure you have a lot of lions piling up in a basement...

    cheers!

    ReplyDelete