San Clemente-based California Milk Processor Board’s famous “Got Milk?” ad campaign will for the first time align its English- and Spanish-language messages under one theme.
The new version of the English language campaign by San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein and Partners, which has won plaudits for its creativity and effectiveness on the account over the past two decades, starts this week. The Spanish-language ads, which started last month, are handled by Grupo Gallegos in Huntington Beach and feature a “Toma Leche” (Drink Milk) slogan.
The campaigns, which share a $20 million budget, center on the theme of milk as a sleep aide.
The idea for the campaigns stems from research that shows tryptophan amino acid found in milk might help people with sleep problems. The 30-second TV ads employ humor to promote drinking milk as a cure to “interrupted dreams.” One “Got Milk” ad shows a Greek goddess turning into a hairy, middle-aged man as she’s about to exit a swimming pool, while another features a young man whose flight among the birds is abruptly cut short. Both scenarios could have been avoided by consuming a “certain drink” before bedtime, the ads suggest.
The general market campaign also will appear on digital displays on bus shelters. A series of images of people yawning—meant to entice a similar response from the audience—is followed by an invitation to call a “sleep hotline” at 1-855-MILK-ZZZ. The recorded hotline provides options to help consumers fall asleep, such as listening to “the world’s most boring man,” reciting the number pi, and hearing a lullaby or chanting monks.
“I’m excited,” said Steve James, executive director of the milk board. “We do something different every year, and it never gets old.”
Internet radio spots similar to the TV ads will run on Pandora.com in the evening, when online banners will appear on other popular websites.
The Spanish-language ads, “Piñata Cars” and “Battle,” impart a message that milk before bedtime promotes happy dreams, with surreal sequences featuring cupcake-gun battles and rubber ducks washing ashore.
The campaign also includes radio spots and exposure in other media.
Grupo Gallegos has handled the account since 2005, including creative development, production and media planning and buying for the Latino market, according to agency founder John Gallegos.
He said that the campaigns’ creators seized on “the nighttime drinking occasion” shared by Latino and non-Latino cultures to craft similar messages.
Grupo Gallegos has a lengthy roster of clients, including Comcast, Clorox Co., J. C. Penney Company Inc., Valvoline and Foster Farms.
The milk board is a nonprofit that promotes milk consumption. It is funded by milk processors throughout the state and overseen by the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
The board’s advertising budget depends on the volume of milk sold in the state. Its biannual tracking study gathers self-reported consumption data and consumers’ sentiments about drinking milk. The five-year results show continued recognition of the benefits of milk, as well as its steady presence in households, but actual consumption is lagging.
“Milk is in competition with a lot more items that did not exist in the past, such as vitamin-fortified water,” James said. “We have to remind consumers to drink it and make it a part of their bedtime ritual.”
