What could you say about milk? It was white and came in gallons. People felt they knew all there was to know about it, so it was hard to find a strategic platform.
– Jeff Manning
Milk advertising has evolved since the 1950s acknowledgement of its significance to a healthy and domestic lifestyle.
Marketers had the difficult task of branding a product that was already labelled by its consumers as boring. Milk’s flimsy cardboard containers had no appeal to the 1970s generation of the 12 – 18 year old target consumers who were swept up in the advertising of soda companies, more specifically Snapple, Sprite, Mountain Dew, and Gatorade in the 1990s, whose containers were travel friendly.
In 1993, California milk processors agreed to donate 3 cents of every gallon sold to promote the consumption of milk through marketing, due to the declining sales in the industry.
The result was CMPB – The California Milk Processor Board, comprised of 11 processors from across the state.
GOT MILK?
The “Got Milk?” campaign was launched by the CMPB and increased sales for milk from $740 million gallons in 1993 to $755 million gallons in 1994
The marketing strategy was to have consumers feel the need for milk through commercials which showed people eating such foods as brownies, and peanut butter sandwiches, without the convenience of a nice glass of milk to wash it down with.
If you Google “Got Milk” there are hundreds more commercials featuring a character deprived of milk when they need it the most.
Our generation is probably most familiar with the “Got Milk?” ads that have celebrity athletes, movie stars, and musicians posing with milk moustaches. These ads were created in 2005 to “keep milk relevant with the times”.
Each ad contains a motivating and informative statement from the celebrity, such as soccer legend David Beckham’s:
“Heads up. The protein in milk helps build muscles and some studies suggest teens who choose it tend to be leaner. Staying active, eating right, and drinking 3 glasses a day of lowfat or fat free milk helps you look great. So grab a class and get in the game.”
In today’s society using celebrities in your advertisements is golden. Whether one likes it or not, our society is highly influenced by who and what we see in the media. Milk’s decision to use celebrities to market its product made its “Got Milk?” campaign one of the most culturally influential since the advent of broadcast television, as declared by Taglinegure.com in 2005.
CMPB’s “Got Milk?” campaign not only aids to increase sales, but it helps to spread awareness of the health importance of milk.
You can visit www.gotmilk.com to learn all about the health benefits of milk, recipes for the product, and the history of the brand.
I found all my information through www.whymilk.com and http://www.aef.com/on_campus/classroom/case_histories/3000, which shares the entire history of the “Got Milk?” campaign.
Go check it out!
HOT!
NOT!
