Actress Aubrey Plaza in MilkPEP's tongue-in-cheek commercial for "Wood Milk."

SALEM — A tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign that touts a new product — Wood Milk — is blowing up social media, which is exactly what dairy milk companies were hoping for.

The campaign — funded through the Milk Processor Education Program — features “White Lotus” actress Aubrey Plaza as the cofounder of Wood Milk in a satirical spoof of the iconic “Got milk” advertising campaign.

The advertising is meant to call attention to the inferior nutrition of plant-based milk alternatives compared with dairy milk, while poking some fun at broader food-brand claims of environmental- and animal-friendly products.

Got Wood Milk?

“Our hope is that Wood Milk causes people to pause, to understand what they are consuming and the nutritional value of their choices,” said Yin Woon Rani, CEO of MilkPEP.

The commercial opens with a flannel-clad Plaza strolling in a woody setting introducing herself as the cofounder of “the world’s first and only milk made from wood.”

“Wood Milk started with a simple idea. I saw a tree, and I asked myself, ‘Can I drink this?’ As it turns out, the answer is yes — if you make it into milk,” she says as her demeanor transitions from wonderment to self-assuredness.

The campaign comes on the heels of FDA’s recent guidance that recommends plant-based milk alternatives labeled “milk” that have a nutrient composition different from milk need to state that on the label, Rani said.

“Our goal is to highlight this recognition along with the fact that many people do not know the nutritional value of their beverages, or lack thereof,” she said.

“In creating our fictitious Wood Milk, a made-up brand with zero nutritional value, we hope to bring the power and goodness of real milk into the spotlight,” she said.

In the video, the bucolic scene continues as Plaza explains Wood Milk Orchards grows its trees the old-fashioned way — right out of the ground.

“And we’re certain our eco-friendly, artisanal, free-range Wood Milk will be the only milk you’ll want to drink for the rest of your life,” she says as B-roll shows her playfully hugging a tree.

“Why?” she asks challengingly.

“Because you’re thirsty, and because you want it, because you want that wood as your milk,” she says with a cocky certainty and lift of her eyebrows.

MilkPEP identified Plaza as its hero spokesperson and is proud to have an authentic milk drinker as its partner, Rani said.

“Not only does she have the perfect comedic relief but her deadpan humor really makes the campaign come to life,” she said.

Mustache mischief

In the video, Plaza says Wood Milk is bottled “right here in the forest and squished into a slime that’s legal to sell,” as the camera zooms in on a gruel-like substance seemingly being pressed out of a tree.

Then enjoying “not the fruits” but woods of the fictitious company’s efforts, she takes a gulp of Wood Milk from a glass, leaving a goopy, splinter-filled mustache and asks, “Got wood?”

In the next scene, sans the Wood Milk mustache, she reads from a cue card, looks into the camera and asks “Is Wood Milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real.”

She then breaks character and irritably asks someone off camera, “Then what did I invest in?”

The advertisement fades with a white screen and the words “Is your milk real? Followed by the “Got milk?” tagline.

The Wood Milk website — https://drinkwoodmilk.com — boasts “an artisanal blend of trunks, roots and branches” to make the Wood Milk, which is “quintuple filtered to create the purest, best tasting Wood Milk around!”

It also states, apparently for good measure, “Our trees are grown in bio-diverse, eco-friendly, artisanal, regenerative, free-range wood forests.”

“We anticipated that Wood Milk (satire) wouldn’t be for everyone, but we wanted to start the conversation,” Rani said.

While Wood Milk is fake, the campaign is selling legitimate T-shirts and making a donation to plant 10,000 trees in partnership with One Tree Planted.

The campaign is social first — You Tube, digital ads and social media — but will also have digital advertising. It was intended to be a short and fun stint and will run for a few weeks.

Bill to outlaw discrimination based on caste clears California Senate

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Senate voted 34-1 Thursday, May 11, in favor of legislation outlawing caste discrimination in the state. If it passes in the state Assembly and is enacted, California could become the first state in the nation to make caste bias illegal by adding it as a protected category in the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

State Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward, the first Muslim and Afghan American elected to the legislature, introduced the bill in March. Caste is a division of people related to birth or descent and those at the lowest strata of the caste system known as Dalits, have been pushing for legal protections in California and beyond. They say it is necessary to protect them from bias in housing, education and in the tech sector — where they hold key roles.

The vote was swift, with only Sen. Brian Jones voting against the legislation, which has been controversial. On April 25, hundreds on both sides of the issue came to voice their opinions during a Senate Judiciary hearing on the matter. Proponents say caste discrimination is a reality in California and that clarifying the state’s anti-discrimination laws will help protected caste-oppressed communities. Opponents have maintained that the law will single out Hindus and people of Indian descent.

Jones, R-Santee, said he has heard concerns from numerous constituents and agrees with them that the legislation unfairly targets a specific group. He contends that caste bias is already covered under existing anti-discrimination laws.

In April, the California Civil Rights Department voluntarily dismissed its case alleging caste discrimination against two Cisco engineers, Sundar Iyer and Ramana Kompella, while still keeping alive its litigation against the Silicon Valley tech giant.

In February, Seattle became the first U.S. city and the first jurisdiction outside South Asia to add caste to its anti-discrimination laws. Several colleges and universities have also enacted similar policies barring caste discrimination on campuses, including University of California, Davis.

• Wood Milk’s main Tik Tok video has 22 million views as of Thursday morning.

• The YouTube video has 4 million views.

• The DrinkWoodMilk website had nearly 18,000 followers after four days.

• #WoodMilkNation has taken to Twitter.