TARES Evaluative Essay: The “Got Milk?” Campaign
Abstract
The paper analyses the advertising campaign “Got Milk?”, launched in 1993 in the USA to increase the consumption of dairy products and its influence on the market. Different aspects of this campaign were revealed, more positive ones, as the campaign promoted milk, one of the most usual products. Main methods used by the campaign managers and goals reached during the campaign were determined. Different television commercials that were aired during the campaign were analyzed. The reasons of its popularity during twenty years were given and explained using concrete examples. The whole “Got Milk?” campaign was analyzed to see if it meets the TARES test requirements. Modern advertising campaigns and “Got Milk?” were compared in this paper.
The “Got Milk?” Campaign
For my research I have chosen the “Got Milk?” campaign. It was launched in 1993 and lasted nearly 20 years. This particular advertising campaign was created to encourage the consumption of cow’s milk. It was created for the California Milk Processor Board and later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers. The “Got Milk?” was intended to increase the sales of milk, resulted in sales increase nationwide, mostly California. The campaign probably had hard times when it just started because it was the peak of popularity of different sodas and in hot California it was hard to beat the manufacturers of cold drinks. But as a result “Got milk?” had an incredible success because of the catchy slogan “Got milk?”, it was simple and easy to understand both for adults and youth. Milk is probably one of the most spread and boring products. No one usually thinks of milk during the day unless they run out of it. This slogan motivated customers, it was telling to have some milk around to make your life better.
Sociological research showed that most customers drink milk often enough, they know about its usefulness, about calcium and even about osteoporosis – illness caused by the lack of this element. Researches continued and it revealed that customers most often drink milk with biscuits, muffins, peanut butter sandwiches and feel very uncomfortable when food is already in the mouth and there is nothing else, no milk to drink. So that became the main concept of the campaign. I can say that the ad’s claims were truthful and authentic ones, motivating customers to think of their health and drink milk more often. Despite the fact it was decided not to emphasize on the usefulness of milk it finally resulted in more accents on it because the campaign managers started to attract new audience, children and teenagers. Humor was used in the television commercial, it became darling in the world of marketing and received plenty of different awards. Celebrities liked the campaign, lots of famous people from the fields of sports, media and even fictional characters acted in advertisements, since 1998 there were printed ads showing a celebrity with “milk mustache” asking “Where is your mustache?”. It …
