I saw this yesterday and it's hilarious... Is there anything else that Sarah Haskins has done?

This made me laugh at something I didn't realize was annoying me. But wow, was it.

Leisha Hailey was in one of those commercials! Boooo. She's my favorite L-Word character. I actually never noticed the way yogurt was advertised before...

When I was a kid, my parents went to Florida without me and the only thing I ate while I stayed at home with my grand parents was yogurt.

I do like yogurt, and will confess to buying Activia (though I do think their trademarked 'bifidus regularis' is a scam, it's not a real science word at all!) but I prefer the Muller Yogurt commercials- this one even opens with a man, look! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivd_t7iimgQ

HAHAHA! I love it! That yogurt wedding commercial has been bothering me for weeks! And I love how they try to make it feminist sounding by saying yogurt is "not catching the bouquet good," whatever. And yes, activia's trademark is a load of crap, every kind of yogurt will help keep you regular. But sadly it's true, every woman over 40 I know has fallen for it (except my mom!)
I'll have to check out that Muller stuff, that ad is great.
Awesome piece. Thanks for the laugh.

my mother in law actually told me yesterday that eating a yoplait a day helps her lose "more weight than if she didn't eat it". It's amazing how even an old yogurt ad campaign stays rooted in our subconscious!

I am so happy about this clip. I saw it on this site's link from yesterday and thought it was amazingly funny. I don't really care for yogurt so much so I was actually already annoyed with how it was marketed. The other kind of product that's marketed the same way are any low calorie or reduced anything forms of chocolate or chocolate deserts. I don't really care for chocolate so much either, but I'm definitely more annoyed by "woman 'food''

My thought has always been, if irregularity is OCCASIONAL, wouldn't it have worked itself out in 2 weeks anyway?

I also remember one that I'm about 99% sure was a yogurt ad that said something along the lines of "watch how god watching your weight can be." Of course, the person watching their weight was a thin, attractive woman.

I hadn't actually thought about the target of these ads until now. I just found them generally annoying.

I love Leisha Hailey so I can't hate on the Yoplait commercials too much. But hell yes to this video for pointing out how targeted yogurt advertising is. My mom is a crazy yogurt lady so I'm most definitely showing her this.

I feel less masculine for liking yogurt... btw.. over here yogurt has an H.. "yoghurt"

As of the end of April, I am officially over 40, but the yogurt commercials make me laugh with derision. Oatmeal makes you regular. Really, seriously regular. Like clock setting regular. ;-)

I'm actually a huge yogurt person, because when I was first diagnosed with GERD, it was the only dairy product I was allowed to have for the first couple of months. My doc recommended it. (This is why I also drink the little DanActiv l. casei drinks.)

This, however, is all solely on my doctor's recommendation. (And, no, he never recommended a specific brand--I'm allowed to pick whatever I want.)

I haven't got TV (and haven't for the last decade) so I guess I miss out on all the yogurt commercials. I had no idea it was so heavily pitched as a lifestyle-for-women thing.

As far as the claims go, eating yogurt (within reason--not every meal, like the crazy commercial ladies) WILL probably help with some digestive issues. But ask your doctor. Don't listen to the TV.

this was in the feminist weekly reader

I was so happy to hear "it's 'who serves yogurt at their wedding?' good", because that has bugged me every time I've seen that commercial. They're bridesmaids at a wedding, so where did the yogurt come from? Was it on the buffet? Did they sew emergency yogurt into the lining of their poofy dresses? Also, they're sitting outside during/after the reception eating it, and yeah, who doesn't enjoy lukewarm yogurt on a sunny day? Yum.

I've always thought the weight loss angle of yogurt ads was especially annoying. Most yogurt cups (even the fat free organic ones--yes, I'm looking at you Stonyfield Farms) have over 20g of sugar in them.

Even for all of yogurt's supposed benefits, it's definitely on the "STOP" list for anyone working on a weight loss regime.

Thanks, that was really hilarious. I'd like to see more of this woman's work, too. She was great.

hilarious. i saw this yesterday, too.
man o man, the current is freaking incredible. consistently quality and educational programming. WHY IS IT NOT THE MOST POPULAR THING EVER YET????

Oh dear.

I watched this while eating homemade soy yoghurt.

I am SUCH A CLICHE!

Hilarious. The Yoplait commercials in particular are so irritating! I'm surprised they didn't get the "She wore an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polk a dot bikini" one! So annoying...

I wish my yogurt were fun like that. :(

Thank you, thank you, thank you! The proliferation of commercials about yogurts that help you crap has me wondering if I'm the only person in America that is never constipated. Good lord, does everyone suddenly get stopped up once they reach 35 or something? An apparently only women have this problem, according to commercials. And I love how the commercials make it sound as if only ONE specific brand of yogurt will help to keep your digestive system healthy with active cultures, or help keep your regular.

And really, WHO THE HELL IS CONSTIPATED FOR TWO WEEKS??? Am I just sheltered? If I were irregular for two weeks, you'd better believe I'd be seeing my doctor about it pronto!

Yeah and every time I see a commercial that talks about *whisper* irregularity, the first thing I think about is menstruation.

What about those activia ads featuring 'real women' talking about how, well, they weren't convinced at first but now they've tried activia for two weeks, they're hooked and are recommending it to all their lady friends? They're on all the time in the uk. I just hate it that apparantly the way to fool us all into thinking these are not actors but average women off the street is to make them inarticulate and giggly. Hmm.

And yes, constipation is apparantly a women-only problem. Because it makes you all, you know, fat and stuff.

yeah, eating all that artificial sweetener and/or sugar that's loaded into those yogurts is SOOOO healthy. I'm not a nutritionist, but I know that if anyone is seriously trying to lose weight, they need to stay away from that stuff. I'm pretty sure they put all that in those "diet foods" to sabotage people's "diets" so that they'll buy MORE "light" yogurt and "diet foods".
I do like eating yogurt though, but organic and PLAIN. I was so happy when i discovered that Stonyfield farms came out with a greek-style yogurt, which is super-creamy, the plain being half the sugar of the regular plain and twice the protein. It's also twice the price... but i don't eat yogurt as often as those commercials say I should, lol. I really wish that they'd come out with fruity-yogurt (here in the US) without the added sugar... but i guess that wouldn't be marketable.

thank you jessica-that really made my day :)

Back in the days of my youth, when Monistat and such were only available with a prescription, and you had to wait, oh, a WEEK while scratching yourself raw in all the wrong places and going insane, yogurt was a folk treatment -- only you put plain yogurt in your vagina. It's also supposed to help cut down on frequent yeast infections when you eat some daily (we just ain't as dainty with the toilet paper as we should be). I imagine that's where the women's health part came from. The part about regularity...well, I think that's some weird new fiber that's in Activia, and not really related to yogurt per se at all.

radrobyn, have you tried mixing an all-fruit jam into plain yogurt? It's quite tasty.

i have mixed in my own fruit and flavoring into my yogurt, but i want something more convenient when i'm packing lunch/snacks to take to work/school. that does sound yummy.

GottaBeMe: Count me in that slim 22% (according to Jamie Lee’s stat) who’s never constipated nor has any other chronic digestive issues along with yourself. And furthermore, I’m 47!

Constipation is really highly subjective, anyway, in my experience. I know the medical party line is that anything between 3x/week and 3x/day is considered normal, but I have a friend who gets all panicky if she only goes twice in any given day. My grandma was the same way and would have abused laxatives till she died (at age 90, LOL) if she hadn’t lived in the old folks home for the last five years of her life where they only let her have stool softeners and Metamucil. She really thought this was torture!

MightyPonygirl’s comment made me think of this:

Dontcha wish your yogurt was fun like mine?
Dontcha wish your yogurt made you go like mine?
Dontcha?

k, that's funny shite. But I do have to point out one advantage to this kind of marketing: women need much more calcium than men. Not only that, but we suffer from osteoporosis on a large scale! So getting the right amount of calcium is really important. Aside from the whole dieting and be as skinny as you can epidemic, I always thought this was the reason for marketing yogurt to women.

Hee! That was great.

On a side note, I've noticed (at least in the part of Europe where I live) that otherwise 'ungendered' products seem to be again increasingly marketed by gender. Or is it me? Beer commercials are all about the guys these days, and that wasn't always the case. Then there was Snickers chocolate, all of a sudden tagged 'fuel for men'. There are several others I can think of. They're all seriously annoying me, because the division makes no sense and the stereotypes are so asinine. I'm not sure why they do it, though I suspect in some cases there's a rationale behind it. Like what Coca Cola did with their Zero ('for men, as it should be') vs Diet: #1 divide the market by gender #2 give each a product #3 Profit!

But this yogurt thing is just generally stupid.

Well crap. I don't like yogurt. I guess I'm not a woman then.

I don't think I need that activia yogurt. Watching the video is enough!

btw, if i am in desperate need to make myself crap, a yogurt ain't gonna cut it.

God I love Current.

I really don't get this irregularity thing. How is yogurt supposed to help? the number one cause of constipation is lack of fluids.

I hate these commercials for a lot of reasons, not the least being that I really freaking like yoghurt. I've eaten it everday for 30+ years. I have favourite brands and flavours and I mix it with granola sometimes for a little excitement. I hate that these commercials are making me look like a cliched 40 yr old woman because of a food choice I made without their input.

It's food, goddammit, not a branding of gender. My spouse eats yoghurt everday too and, last time I checked, he had a penis.

Let's compare this to the all-bran commercial aimed at men:
http://www.slate.com/id/2175772/

The only bio-female specific reason to market yoghurt to women is that eating it has been shown to reduce incidence of both yeast infections and bladder infections (yep, both, check Pubmed). Wanna bet that won't show up in a TV spot?

@radrobyn

"btw, if i am in desperate need to make myself crap, a yogurt ain't gonna cut it."

...is the funniest thing I have read in a long, long time.

This is hilarious. I remember when those commercials for Activia started my boyfriend immediately picked up on them:
This yoghurt was designed cause "girls can't poop" ;-)
He has a point: It portraits womens digesting alimentary system as a natural failure...
Anyway, to those of you talking 'bout Müller: You might want to rethink buying that stuff: Müller uses genetically modified feed imported from America to feed its animals. Tasty..!

How is something with NO FIBER going to help keep you regular? Animal foods (including dairy products) have no fiber, unless you ADD it in (like I guess the fiber one crap does). And how can you get usable calcium from something so high in protein (excess protein makes you lose calcium)? I'd say a high fiber diet does more to keep me regular than two weeks of whatever cultures they're shilling this month.

Most commercials are idiotic bilge anyway, which is why I try my damndest not to pay attention to them. The stuff I buy is rarely, if ever, advertised on TV.

P.S. I'll give credit to one of those commericals--where one of the women says that it's "not catching the bouquet good." At least they're not desperate to catch a bouquet and then a husband.