US Press News - Yogurt Wars: New Ad Campaigns Linked to Lives of Loved Ones

In the fast paced world of corporate yogurt producers anything goes, and often does. As headline after headline exposes the seedy underbelly of the yogurt industry the companies themselves seem oblivious to the public relations nightmare that they are creating. Not only are they continuing their money-hungry, free-wheeling ways in the board room but two of the companies newest ad campaigns aim to take the public on a heinous joyride of humiliation and heartbreak.

Yoplait yogurt last week announced it will again run it's "Save Lids to Save Lives" program this year. The program, in which Yoplait donates ten cents for every foil Yoplait lid mailed in by consumers, has the potential to raise $1.5 million for breast cancer research. If consumers do not do their part by buying more product from Yoplait and mailing in the lids, Yoplait may only donate $750,000 leading to many more needless breast cancer related deaths.

The announcement by Yoplait has prompted reaction from Dannon Yogurt who today launched a new program entitled "Eat Dannon or the Kid Gets It." Dannon's controversial new campaign is what the company calls a "scaled down, reality based" campaign based on the brinkmanship of Yoplait and will feature a cute white kid being held hostage by Dannon board members. If consumers do not buy "enough" Dannon yogurt by the end of the year the child will be shot.

Asked to quantify "enough" either in units sold or a dollar amount, Dannon CEO Thomas Kunz said at today's press

Try the banana-strawberry, it relieves guilt
conference to launch the campaign, "We'll know when it's enough." A sweaty Eric Leventhal, Dannon's Vice President of Marketing, who's gun hand trembled as he held the crying child close to his body said Dannon didn't want to "tie itself down" to a predisposed number. "When we've sold what we feel is enough yogurt, we'll let the kid go. You have our word."

Dairy industry insiders are calling the new campaigns brilliant in their simplicity.

"You buy our product or people die, it's as simple as it gets," says Joseph Clift, a dairy manufacturer in the Chicago area. "We've tried for years to get people to drink milk by telling them it's good for them, that it will help them in their old age, that it 'does a body good'. We even tried enlisting celebrities with the whole 'Got Milk?' thing. Well those just didn't work and we had to move away from, 'help yourself in old age' to 'help the kid get to old age'."

Consumer advocate groups are calling the campaigns "pure insanity" and are concerned not only about the health and well being of the child and breast cancer patients but the consumer public as well.

"No one wants to be guilted into buying a product so a child or cancer patient can live," said long time consumer advocate and short time political laughingstock, Ralph Nader. "The only two scenarios that can come out of this are that it works, which will create copycat hostage based advertising, or people will die. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone but the yogurt companies."

Rumors of a Fox Network reality show based on the captivity of the 4 year old have been circulating for days. Dannon officials would not confirm or deny the development of such a show, instead suggesting that we refer readers to their closest supermarket dairy section because "the clock is ticking."

I know, I know, satire sites are not supposed to get serious, but I'm doing it anyway. US Press suggests that you quit buying Yoplait yogurt for the rest of the year and instead donate that money to breast cancer research. Then contact Yoplait and tell them that's what you are doing because you think tying the lives of our mothers/aunts/sisters/daughters to mailed-in pink foil lids just sits wrong in your gut. Maybe explain to them that you understand that public awareness plays a crucial role in any charitable cause, but to DIRECTLY correlate unit sales to lives saved is crass at best. Their dollars would be better spent creating an ad campaign profiling all the workers or worker's family members their company has lost to breast cancer and telling you part of EVERY Yoplait purchase goes to research. They might make more lifelong customers that way. Of course, only do this if you agree with me. Otherwise, go about your business.