Butterfly SuperHighway

Lafayette American continues its campaign to build a Butterfly Superhighway across North America, with a campaign to change the name “milkweed”. Because milkweed is a dumb name if you’re trying to get people to plant it to save butterflies.

This year, Lafayette American sent out its second annual artfully designed packet of milkweed seeds in the mail. These seeds are a part of a campaign to get milkweed planted all over the eastern ⅔ of the United States. Milkweed is the only food that monarch butterflies eat in their long migration from Mexico to Canada and back every year.

Additionally, Lafayette American launched a campaign to change the name “milkweed”. Why? Because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service emphatically states that milkweed is not technically a weed. And yet it’s called a weed, which makes it tough for people to imagine wanting to plant it in their yard. I mean, who wants to plant a weed?

Lafayette American has suggested a range of other names, including Monarch Muffin, Butterfly Buffet and Milky Way.

The alternative names are included on the ButterflySuperHighway.com website that L|A created with the team at Echo Charlie. The site gives people a chance to vote on their favorite name and/or suggest their own.

The site also includes an interactive map where people can follow the migration of the butterfly along various paths that take it from central Mexico up through various states of the US until they finally arrive in Canada.

Lafayette American knows it cannot build this Superhighway alone. Our hope is that other brands will join the movement. First, though, we need to get a better name than ‘milkweed’.