Big Milk has sent, uh, Aubrey Plaza to its front lines in the battle against nondairy milk. In a new Got Milk?–style ad, she parodies the dizzying slew of alt milks on the market by promoting a fake brand called “Wood Milk.” Dressed in farmer-chic flannel and soothing earth tones, Plaza takes a sip of grayish sludge, smiling through a pulpy milk mustache. “Is Wood Milk real?” She deadpans. “No, only real milk is real.”
Struggling against a world where the FDA has officially let almond, oat, and soy cop its name, Big Milk has (probably) paid Plaza huge bucks to convince the youth to please drink dairy. The viral spoof was created by the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), which sounds like a wholesome after-school activity but is actually an industry marketing firm funded by big dairy producers—and the very same group that came up with the iconic “Got Milk?” campaign, which ran from the 1990s until 2014.
But the plan has backfired: Instead of making nondairy milk look stupid, the ad has gotten backlash from Plaza stans, making Big Dairy look stupid. They’re calling the actress a “dairy propagandist” for siding with Big Milk. The outrage got so real that Plaza seemingly turned off comments on her sponsored Instagram post. “Aubrey, no!” screamed one TikToker, narrating the Wood Milk campaign video. “Why on earth are you getting in bed with ‘Got Milk?’ Nobody likes milk—like, literally nobody.”
The thing is, the youths Big Milk wants to conscript have already defected from this culture war. Fresh off a White Lotus season, Plaza must have seemed like a platonic ambassador to rally Zoomers and Millennials back to the dairy. But it’s too late. Despite clever milk marketers inventing Shark Tank–like contests and deploying athletes and famous YouTubers to fight milk’s flop era, last year Gen Z customers bought 20% less cow’s milk than the national average.
Dairy’s decline has been happening since…1945, when America’s per capita milk consumption had peaked at 45 gallons annually. In 2021 the average consumer bought 16 gallons per year. Though cows’ milk sales are still worth almost six times more than alt milks, the plant-based options are far outpacing dairy in terms of growth. Frankly, that’s partially because a lot of alt milks just taste really, really good.
Big Milk has always found a fan base in government officials invested in propping up the dairy industry—and in far-right politicians. But it’s never appealed to Gen Zers, The New York Times reports. While plenty of elder Millennials (like Plaza), Gen Xers, and Boomers still drink at least some dairy milk, and others have predicted a whole milk comeback to rival the pandemic sourdough boom, our youngest generation has never really been about the cow. They’re grossed out by the watery, non-fat milk options at school. And milk is a huge environmental villain this generation wants to overthrow; livestock farming is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than any other aspect of food production.
Big Milk really overdid the bit this time. On top of Plaza’s cameo, MilkPEP treated the fictional Wood Milk company eerily like a trendy, direct-to-consumer startup. A campaign website features an ironic FAQ and sells Wood Milk t-shirts that read: “Got Wood?” and “It Does a Body Wood.” An “Our Story” page claims that, “Here at Wood Milk, we use only the highest-quality hard woods.” The fake brand even has dedicated social accounts on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.
It’s kinda embarrassing to put in that much effort into an ad just to learn that oat’s still winning. The dairy industry seems in denial about the state of things, but here’s the truth: Gen Z probably would, in fact, want to try Wood Milk.