DFVP 412: MEDIA DESIGN WORKSHOP
BRANDING CASE STUDY: got milk?
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
INTRODUCTION
In early, 1993, Jeff Manning, newly appointed Executive Director of the
California Milk Processor Board (CMPB), was reviewing reports on per
capita U.S. consumption of milk, the numbers painted a disturbing
picture. There had been a steady decline in milk consumption over the
previous two decades and recently the decline was accelerating.
Concerned with long-term declining milk sales, California's largest milk
processors voted to fund a marketing board that would be charged with
creating advertising dedicated to selling milk. The processors agreed to
finance the California Milk Processor Board (2) by contributing three
cents for every gallon of milk they processed. This assessment allowed
for a $23 million/year marketing budget. As their first act, the board
had hired Manning and he reported to CMPB's board of nine
representatives.
Prior to the CMPB's formation, the California Milk Advisory Board
(CMAB), had for many years produced the "Milk Does a Body Good" ad
campaign. The campaign echoed the government's nutrition program,
which encouraged people to drink a few glasses of milk each day to
maintain their health. As Manning took over, consumers evidently still
believed that milk was nutritious. "Ninety-three or -four percent of the
people already said milk was good for you," Manning recalled. "And 90%
said it had calcium, and a fair percentage said that calcium helped
prevent osteoporosis. The problem was that the old ads didn't change
consumers' behavior."
THE PROBLEM
The current campaign targeted the idea that milk was good and
nutritious, something consumers already knew. Nothing new was
enticing them to think of milk outside its stereotypical brand identity.
THE SOLUTION/STRATEGY
Manning hired ad agency Goodby and he and his team used this
consumer insight as the spark for what came to be called the
deprivation strategy: selling milk as a complement to certain foods, the
strategy was to remind milk drinkers of the anxiety and disappointment
that came when milk wasn't available at crucial moments, with certain
foods. Working to distill this milk-deprived emotional state into a phrase
that everyone might instantly understand, Goodby coined the
campaign's well-known grammatically challenged tagline, "got milk?"
TELEVISION ADS - 1993
Goodby's team produced six ads to launch the campaign. Several of
these ads created a stir. The first, Aaron Burr , became one of the most
popular ads of the early Nineties. Burr featured an odd and seemingly
irrelevant situation for milk deprivation: an iconoclastic history nut who
fails to win a prize on a call-in radio show on history trivia because his
mouth is glued shut with a peanut butter sandwich.
Market research confirmed what Goodby and Manning had hoped for.
Respondents indicated that drinking milk was becoming a fashionable
thing to do. "Suddenly, drinking milk was cool," recalled Manning.
Manning and Goodby were as buoyed by their campaign's popularity as
they were with milk's improving sales. "The response came in waves.
The advertising community was first and they loved it. Aaron Burr won
the Best in Show award at the 1994 Clio Awards, the advertising
industry's equivalent of the motion picture industry's Academy Awards,
or Oscars.
In 1994, California's milk sales increased for the first time in over a
decade, to 755 million gallons from the previous year's 740 million.
Within months, the "got milk?" advertisements became famous. The
tagline, "got milk?" spawned countless imitations wherein "milk" was
exchanged for virtually any product or concept. Everywhere you looked,
publicity-seekers were tagging onto the campaign by converting the
slogan to suit their purposes.
Aaron Burr, Got Milk ad:
​
Birthday, Got Milk ad:
​
Vending Machine, Got Milk ad:
​
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​h ttp://youtu.be/IJHxsAhjKAA
​h ttp://youtu.be/GA3cSyEKZFQ
RESULTS
The number of California milk consumption jumped from 72% at the
start of the campaign to 78% a year later. Sales jumped 6.8% the first
year. Prior to the campaigns launch California Milk Processors
experienced a decline in sales of 1.7% or $18 million. A year after the
launch, sales volume increased 1.1% or $13 million, for a total
turnaround of $31 million. During this same time, sales outside of
California where the ads ran experienced sales decrease of %. 01.
By 1995, the ads had gone national and sales increased across the
United States. After seeing such success in California and the entire
United States, the UK’s Milk Development Council approached CMPB to
license “got milk?” and by the early 2000’s ads began running
throughout England, Wales, and Scotland.
FUTURE OUTLOOK
The got milk? campaign resonated with consumers, first in California,
then the US, then the UK. Not only did it increase sales and slow down
a two-decade decline in milk consumption, but it launched a market for
licensed merchandise and “got milk?”. By 2005, other advertisers had
co-opted the slogan for such marketing projects as “Got Wine?” “Got
Jesus?” “Got Porn?” “Got Books?”
Jeff Manning contends that the success of the “Got Milk?” campaign
demonstrates both the value and power of advertising:
“got milk?” changed the world of advertising. It proved, perhaps more
convincingly than any other media campaign…that products, even
ancient products like milk, can be resurrected with smart, creative
advertising.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How long can they keep running “got milk?” What can they do to keep
the message and strategy fresh in the consumer’s minds?
Are there other examples of other successful campaigns that ran this
long? What are they?