Nothing conjures bucolic, pastoral farm imagery like a group of kids singing along to 鈥淥ld MacDonald Had A Farm.鈥� You know the words: He has a farm and on that farm he has some animals. E-I-E-I-O.
The nursery rhyme is iconic. It rouses a certain kind of nostalgia. Tamper with the formula to stir up some emotions, and you鈥檙e begging for a slugfest.
That鈥檚 exactly what happened when , a group made up of some of the country鈥檚 largest organic food companies like Earthbound Farm and Organic Valley, released an ad on YouTube called 鈥淣ew MacDonald.鈥� It starts as innocently as the childrens鈥� song, but quickly takes a dark turn, showing a staged farm flooded with pesticide spray, genetically-engineered corn made of papier-mache and stuffed farm animals in cages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypF15z3euwM
Predictably, the video . The ad is easy to understand and fits into a narrative long in the making: that conventional farmers are irresponsible with chemicals, cruel to animals and flippant about the environment. Plus, kids are cute, and everyone knows the tune.
But most farmers, organic ones included, hate that narrative and are ready to dismantle it on social media at a moment鈥檚 notice. When Only Organic rolled out the campaign during a Twitter chat Wednesday, the farmer response was swift, continuing a new tradition of brands seeing their curated conversations and crafted hashtags .
My food comes from my , farm and anything I can't grow comes from verified sources.
— Honey Rowland (@HoneysLife)
So there's a Twitter party Mar 11th at 9:00pm EST. I would prefer to hear from & get the truth!
— Tara McIntosh (@Tara_L_Mc)
I find it ironic that bashes Big Ag but gives a pass to the multi-billion dollar Big Organic.
— Jim Smith, Ph.D. (@JimSmith87)
Few people in the food movement grasp what it means to the farmers to be so devalued and dehumanized by big biz in campaign
— NYFarmer (@NYFarmer)
I understand the anger, but if your response to is to slam , you're just part of the problem.
— Rob Taller-in-Real-Life Wallbridge (@songberryfarm)
In these types of Twitter chats you end up with a few different tacks. Some prefer to challenge the factual claims. Others choose to make fun. Others despair, especially in this case because the ad used the mouths of babes to spread the message.
Still others prefer to take the long view, in a somewhat cynical way.
In the end,the only winners in these "food fights" are marketing companies& brands ...not the farmers...or consumers
— LeahMcGrath (@LeahMcGrathRD)
And others take a more blunt tone.
Spent five minutes cruising through the tag.
— Rob Sprayers Full Stone (@rgstone1)
I am now dumber than I was six minutes ago for having embarked on that journey.
Does the old mantra 鈥渁ny press is good press鈥� still apply in the era of Twitter? In the end, Only Organic got a bunch of people to issue thousands of tweets about their ad, getting more eyeballs on the divisive YouTube video (up to nearly a million views, at last check). And they鈥檙e more than ready to brag about it.
I鈥檓 so grateful for my peeps coming out last night! We trended in 15 cities and created over 26 million impressions :)
— Leah Segedie (@bookieboo)
