Heads bowed in apology for showing women as ‘cows’

Special Desk

Showing women as cows in a promo cost a big dairy firm a public apology and also had to remove the promo from all the media platforms.
Video by Seoul Milk showed a man secretly filming a group of women in a field, who later turn into cows. South Korea’s biggest dairy brand was compelled to apologise over the advert depicting women as cows.

After facing a public backlash, the company removed the promo from YouTube. But the same has gone viral after being re-uploaded by internet users. Some also compared the man’s behaviour to ‘molka’ — the illegal practice of secretly filming people.
“We sincerely apologise to everyone who felt uncomfortable with the milk commercial,” Seoul Milk’s parent company Seoul Dairy Cooperative said in an online apology.

“We are accepting this matter seriously and will conduct an internal review, and take extra care to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future. We bow our heads in apology,” it added.

As the full video is said to be showing a man with a camera wandering through the countryside and then a voice over says ‘We finally managed to capture them on camera in a place of pristine cleanliness’ and it is then followed by the man, hidden in bushes, filming a group of women drinking from a stream and doing yoga. When the man accidentally steps on a twig it startles the women who suddenly turn into cows.

The advert has sparked a national debate over sexism and gender sensitivity issues but the criticism was not confined to women being depicted as cows. Some also voiced concerns about the man surreptitiously filming the group of women, with spy cam crimes in South Korea having risen over the past few years.