for a surprisingly wide range of products or services. Dairy products, or products made from dairy, are one of them, of course. Also furniture (divans) that contain leather, or travel bags, but we have not seen any advertisements for leather clothing that feature a cow.

Before the rise of the bio-industry, we saw cows grazing in the meadow and therefore we see that products that can demonstrate a (sometimes far-fetched) connection with meadow or other grassland also sometimes call upon the help of this good animal. Examples include petroleum products for agricultural use, but also a football magazine or an open-air music festival.

Besides these products where we can understand the relationship with cattle, we see many other advertisements where the reasoning behind the choice of a cow is not so easy to understand: financial products, radio and TV channels, newspapers, telecom and computer products (printers and displays), cars, etc.

Nevertheless, we have tried to discover some systematics and we have succeeded in distinguishing a number of different approaches (usage types).

Usage type	†  frequency
Cows are a source of dairy products, meat, leather, and manure	23%
Behavior: cows are curious and they moo; bulls are attracted to red	9%
Bulls mean thrill, or risk, or stress, or action	11%
Used because of the name of a product	5%
Cattle as element (or representation) of the landscape	32%
Cattle as a source of pollution; bio industry	7%
Expressions referring to cows	14%
We have no idea why; trying to be funny?	32%

Note that in almost half of the cases (48%) the cow was chosen because of its behavior, or because it provides an element, or the name of the advertised product. In approximately one third of the cases, a cow was chosen because the product or service has a connection with the landscape (grassland) where cattle used to spend a large part of their time before the rise of factory farming. In just as many cases we see no clear reason why cattle were chosen, unless it was to stand out (?) or to appear funny.

to understand. We have a soft milk chocolate (№ 1) and the softness is further emphasized by the image of a calf. Or should that perhaps give the hint that the chocolate is particularly recommended for children? Butter comes straight from the pasture and is a pure and natural product (№ 2). That must be good for us. We recognize the same thought in № 4 where cows graze from north to south for our health. We also learn: Belgium [is a] country of milk and butter not honey. The liqueur with cream (№ 5) shows a rural scene with a church, lots of greenery and freely walking cows that are visited in the meadow to be milked manually by the farmer's wife. It makes us melt with warm feelings full of nostalgia and with that bottle we can evoke that feeling at will.

As with grapes, there are also meat connoisseurs and they are expected in the beef bar of № 3. The commercial lists different races and even tries a simple language joke (in English for a Dutch-speaking audience): Nice to meat you.

Leather products usually keep it simple. They show the product with a cow next to it, and some­times they just show the cow (№s. 6, 7).

, such as in Traveling with luggage (№ 8). Feeling is a monthly upscale lifestyle glossy magazine and this advert is one of series with the same person in different situations. Therefore, the luggage in question may have nothing to do with leather suitcases. It may be about intellectual luggage provided by the magazine. The footer of the commercial reads Take your pleasure seriously. It is not clear if this is a reference to a popular tagline by the designer Charles Eames. Why the cow, or the octopus in another case, or this tagline? A mystery to me.

(№ 9) is an advert for leather furniture and we recognize the simple approach of the previous examples (6, 7). But the advertiser tries to get a smile out of us with a simple sound joke. In Belgium cows do not say moo, but boe, or meuh, and most often beuh. In Dutch the "beuh" of the cow sounds exactly the same as "beu", which means fed up. So the animal (as a supplier of the leather) is telling us that she can never get enough of the sales at that furniture store.

The next examples (№s. 10–12) show cows looking at us curiously and questioningly. № 10 is easy to understand. The cows are curious about what is happening in the world. There is a new digital version of their trusted newspaper. The advertisement plays with the name of the paper version which is called Trouw which means loyal, sometimes even faithful. So the title says Blijf Trouw, which means stay with us on your smartphone.

In the following commercials, the cows stare at us with big questioning eyes. Also fascinated by your region? (11) is a jobadvert looking for commercial talent, more specifically a teleseller for job advertisements, and also a commercial representative. The poor animals represent the candidate who is fascinated by the region and we can only hope that the job will be taken up by someone who will deal more actively with his, or her, or their fascination.

№ 12, Am I in the right place…?, is from a group of graphic companies that sell expertise in graphic communications (websites, printing, and also design, finishing, …). I can't figure out what those cows are doing here. It is perhaps a counterexample: the consultant is clearly in the wrong place. It is also possible that what we see is not a consultant, but a potential customer of the advertiser who is asking the wrong person for advice. However in both cases it is odd that the cows are looking curiously at the reader. They should stare at the lost person, be it consultant or customer!

(№ 13) with an even more winding road to get to the cow. The company, which manages the country's high-voltage network, is responsible for a flawless energy supply. Right up to the festival grounds. (which are pastures). Then follows a promotional text with the strengths of the company and what it can offer the candidates. The text ends with The grass might be greener on our side. Well, even Bella is surprised. The cow is clearly called here because she lives in the meadow, often looks at us curiously and of course to give the advertisement a mildly funny touch.

Our next example (14) shows a more direct, brutal even, approach: You are an idiot if you are not in the festival meadow yet. That is the same approach as the previous one: festival, grassland, cow, and maybe also the thought, even (dumb) cows know that.

(№ 15) is about a magazine about football. We recognize the same line of thinking: football; is played on grass; grassland is, at least in times bygone, where cows live; therefore a cow is called upon §. But the designers wanted more. The cow's spot pattern has been made to fit the subject and conversely the accompanying text has been enriched with references to the animal. Quite amateurish, I think, unless the writers felt that they were adapting themselves to the level of their target audience. Some keywords (from Dutch): Stop milking ‡ and grab now the football season by the horns. … and smell the sweat of the hottest prize animals. … wildest sports magazine … are already tempting you out of your stable.

(№ 16) makes me wonder if such an advertisement can work. We see a cow in the meadow with a long text in a very small point size on her flank, and at the bottom, barely visible, a company logo. There is nothing that prompts me to — where are my reading glasses? — decipher the text. The story is rather complicated. Morag is a cow ¥. One morning she escapes from her pasture and ends up on the motorway. She caused a 25-kilometer tailback. This is followed by a staccato line of reasoning about the subject of the commercial: working from home.

But that didn't matter to Mark. • He heard about it on the radio and decided not to go into work. • He didn't go into work because he can work from home. • He can work from home thanks to BT's flexible work solutions. • BT's flexible work solutions allow you to work from anywhere.

And then back to the beginning of the story with Which is why Morag, can be a GTi convertible. followed by the brand's logo and the slogan In business, communication is everything. Is this an example of good communication?

(№ 17) an investment company is telling us that they make it their business to understand renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind, and even energy from cow manure. Hence the cow and the title Farms become power stations.

In How many hectares are you using? (№ 20) people are invited to calculate their ecological footprint and learn how to reduce it. Given the impact of meat production on greenhouse gas emissions, the choice of a cow is very pertinent.

relating to cows in № 13 (the grass is greener elsewhere). We encounter the same expression in № 21 where a cow, fed up, leaves for better places. It is a free newspaper distributed on commuter trains that proudly proclaims how many readers there are. People no longer look outside and the cow misses the attention. The text accompanying the image gives the cow's lament — cringey as always with this kind of texts:

Beu! Adieu! I'm out of here. … The grass may be greener on the other side of the hill. I'm going to graze somewhere else anyway. Where no train passes. …

Remember Beu ≡ Moo, see № 9. In 2024, the newspaper itself ceased to exist, because everyone is now glued to their smartphones.

is used in №s. 18 and 19: Een waarheid als een koe is used for an indisputable fact that needs no further explanation. № 18 is an indictment to make supermarket customers aware of the exploitation and particularly poor living conditions of dairy cows.

Your supermarket is underpaying a large group of women. It is an indisputable fact — Een waarheid als een koe — your supermarket keeps the price of a carton of milk low, at the expense of hard-working ladies … That pricing policy demolishes cows, literally … and so they are milked dry … Dairy cows deserve much better.

In this case it would have been particularly odd not to use a cow ¶. The second example (19) is a different matter. Both the animal and the expression have been manipulated. The image shows a composition of a cow (Koe in Dutch) and a horse (Paard) . In the expression the first letter of the cow has been replaced by the first letter of the horse: so koe becomes poe. Then follows a long story about green energy, which is often actually gray, but not with this supplier. However why this poe chimera was chosen is a mystery to me.

female animals, that is well known. But their male counterparts, that is something else. Beware of them. The foreign exchange broker of № 23 suggests that in Spain you should be constantly on the lookout for stray bulls. However, the photo does not show a scene from the daily life of the average Spaniard, but from the Patron Saint festivities of Ampuero, a village in Cantabria. On that occasion there are races with young men running in front of a herd of bulls. Of course, it still is a good idea to seek professional help when investing abroad.

For a more intense experience of every action you'll need this flat screen TV (№ 24). We have adverts for TV-sets and flat screens of the same and other brands stemming from the 1990s and it looks like the emphasis has shifted since then.

Year	selling point	animal
1990, '91	true color, sharper image, much more contrast, menu on screen	mole
1999	vibrant colors, sharp, no distortion	colorful fish

In later commercials, like the one on hand (24), there is more talk about experiences and less about technical features. Perhaps because the progress of technology makes it more difficult to distinguish oneself from others. It is clear that they wanted to convey excitement. This could also have been done with other dangerous and charging animals (think Rhinoceros or Hippopotamus).

surprising. We see a printer spitting out a sheet with a photo of the same type of event as in № 23, taking up most of an entire spread with a bull. My first thought was that the bull represented the speed and power of the printer, but that changed when I read the text. This is how it goes: Now that really is stress. No escape. I'm on my own with that raging bull on my neck … In my opinion, there are two possible interpretations. It depends on who is speaking.

Suppose the device is speaking. In that case, the bull that chases the printer can only be the one who gives the print command: the user, perhaps you as the reader and as the potential owner of the device to be purchased. If we assume that the operator of the printer is speaking, then the bull is actually chasing that user. So the bull might very well be your boss. That is, the one who has to approve the purchase. My conclusion is that you, the future operator, and/or your boss as a potential buyer are being compared to a roaring bull. Hmm.

(25) is for a TV show called farmer wants wife. No explanation needed here. I recognize the same subtlety as in a German advertisement for a printer.

In the commercial (26) we see a scene where a young man, attracted by the very complete equipment for that time, carefully tries to get to the vehicle. Unfortunately, the bull, attracted by the color, forms a formidable obstacle. But that does not stop the young man. The text tells the same story and gives a summary of the standard equipment of this car. Text and image support each other and it is clear that they want to elicit a smile from the potential buyer.

to understand.
In № 27 houses are for rent in a new district. The new district is built on the site of the former cattle market. Hence the name Veemarkt (≡ Cattle market). This explains the cow. Upon completion, the project was one of the most sustainable neighborhoods in the country. Knowing what we know today about cows and climate change, a cow as a figurehead might not have been the best choice.

Jupiler Tauro (28) was a blond beer, born in 2008, with an alcohol percentage of 8.3%. It was the first blond bottom-fermented beer from that brewery with such a high alcohol percentage. In 2012 this beer was discontinued and replaced by Jupiler New Tauro with only 6.2% alcohol. Jupiler's emblem has been a bull from the beginning.

№ 29 shows a long line of cows, one of them is looking away from us, all the others are looking at us. Who is the minority now? That cow showing her behind? But that is not an immense minority (even when it comes to the size of the animal), is it? What about the other cows? But they are in the majority. And why cows? For a national TV channel.

Advert № 33 Something changed in the air was published in 1996 in a daily of Ushuaia. It is for a radio station, possibly connected to the newspaper. But why is the listener (note the head­phones) a cow?

associated with a remarkably large number of animal species. To name a few: Bee, Frog, Gold fish, Hippopotamus, Horse, Mole, Penguin, Porcupine, Toad, and more. Today we may add cattle to the list.

As of today we supply cream colored Hello paper, says the cow on the pallet (31), Ordered today, delivered promptly tomorrow morning. Why the cow? Could it be because of: cream color – cream – milk – cow?

Advertisement №32 is even more puzzling. I give you the full text (from Dutch):

If you want impact • you have to break the rules • except one
Choose the paper that gets the most out of advertising.

Why this animal? For the impact? Why the jewel in the nose?

in № 34 where we see a precious ring on the milkmaid's hand. The brand's slogan is made to wear all the time. But why would this situation, a person milking a cow, be chosen? Why not something more contemporary? Or is it the intention to refer to sustainability and the warmth of the good old days?

is also a mystery to me. We see a girl in colours that (deliberately?) strongly resemble the range usually used by the milk chocolate in № 1. She is carrying a cow! The text below the scene reads: Do you want to realize your dreams? And save money for them? This is easy …

Does the young lady dreams of one day being able to carry a cow on her shoulder? Will saving make that possible? • Is the cow perhaps symbol for an obstacle to realizing her dream and do we see her overcome the obstacle thanks to her savings? • Does she want to buy a cow to have milk — and to make milk chocolate; in this case the choice of colors is perhaps not a coinciden­ce. Who knows?

is again at work with cattle: You would do anything not to give in. So where in № 26 the young man is willing to take high risks to get to the desired car, this old-style farmer (note the rake) does not want to buy the car at all. Well … Why not something with an ostrich? Or a bull again? A lion perhaps?