Fonterra uses prisons song in ad

Fonterra has raised eyebrows with its latest milk advertising campaign accompanied by the tune of a song about two infamous American prisons, once notorious for reports of guards murdering inmates and torturing them by passing electric currents through their genitals.

The Anchor television campaign advertises the lengths taken to get fresh milk from the farm to the fridge in the daily "Great Milk Run".

The soundtrack is the tune Long Line Rider, written and sung by Bobby Darin, which is about two prison farms in the US state of Arkansas.

Up until the late 1960s the Tucker State and Cummins State prison farms used inmates as forced labour and hundreds were believed murdered and buried in the prisons' grounds, and their disappearance put down to escapes.

The farms were notorious for endemic sexual assault, electrical torture, beatings and extortion of money from prisoners and gave rise to the "Tucker Telephone", an old crank telephone converted to send an electric current through a man's genitals.

The song's lyrics include "There's a farm in Arkansas, Got some secrets in its floor... you can tell where they're at, Nothin' grows, the ground is flat. Where they lay".

A spokeswoman for Fonterra said the song was chosen because it had the right rhythm and tone for the advertisement.

Fonterra recognised there were lyrics in the original song which were inappropriate but these had been edited out, she said.

- NZPA