Ty's Got Milk

Ty Pennington has most definitely been “Trading Spaces”. Instead of building fantastical homes, he’s the new spokesperson for Similac’s SimplePac . Quite frankly, the formula company’s choice strikes me as slightly odd. I am fully supportive of the men involved in raising children feeding them when able, but Ty Pennington has no children. Therefore, technically, he really isn’t the correct kind of “design expert” required for revamping a can of formula.

I find the tone of both the video and the print ads ( as seen in Parents Magazine) for this Similac SimplePac condescending. First we have a childless man surrounded by supposed mothers who cannot for the life of them function with a regular formula can! As far as I know it’s never been overly difficult to measure out formula. It is because he’s so good at opening a paint can that he has the knowledge necessary to understand an infant’s feeding schedule? The feminist in me balks at the entire notion. Mothers in the ads crowd around Ty as he explains the stay-put scoop, looking like groupies. We don’t, as women, need a Man to help us feed our children. In the same vain, a father doesn’t need a woman to tell him how to shake a bottle up. Ty’s placement in these spreads feels like another shot taken at the empowerment mothers, and parents in general, seek in their roles as caregivers.


Ty does actually have a degree in the design field, having gone to Kennesaw State University and spent numerous years working as a carpenter before his stints on Trading Spaces and Extreme Home Makeover. Still, that doesn’t give him the “street credit” to revolutionize formula feeding. In reading his Wikipedia bio, I found it much more interesting that his mother, a psychologist, worked so tirelessly to help her son through his struggles his ADHD. Rather than pulling the strong-man-carpenter charade in these new ads, I would rather him have taken the route of wanting to make something easier for moms since he was so much trouble for his own. That would have been genuine and relatable. Formula doesn’t need sex appeal.


The women playing the mothers in the advertisements are almost worse than Ty himself. I truly believe they make all mothers look stupid with their revelations over snapping lids and firm grips. Honestly, Similac, could you have made motherhood seem more mundane and ridiculous? Concurrently, the only bottles I thought of when seeing Ty in these pictures were the ones that landed him with a DUI in 2007. I know he apologized sincerely and paid his dues, but it just proves further that Similac did a poor job with these commercials.


Maybe his agent thought he needed an even more wholesome outlet after the reports of Extreme Home Makeover house foreclosures . He should have considered returning to Trading Spaces alongside Paige Davis; their ratings would go through the roof! Basically he seems to be a good guy appealing to the wrong fan base.



FYI:
There's a slighty edited version of this going up at Crabbygolightly today: www.crabbygolightly.com/tysgotmilk

And I'm post it over at opensalon.com right now as well! Come over and read, join if you want, and leave me some comments!