• Los Angeles Times, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 10:47 AM

The California Milk Processor Board's "Battle for Milkquarious" -- a 20-minute Web-only "rock opera" by agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners -- features the exploits of White Gold, which Dan Neil refers to as a "doofus-y guitar-strutter/pitchman" who was once "dairy-averse" but "has been transformed by the power of milk into, well, a refugee from an '80s hair band."

White Gold has more than 12,000 fans on his Facebook page, he tweets, and there are five songs - including "Is It Me, or Do You Love My Hair?"-- on iTunes. It's not commerce, and it's not exactly marketing, either, Neil writes. "It's a new breed of branded entertainment," he says, and perhaps it even brings us into the Andy Warhol territory of "branded art."

"The days when you could hit kids over the head with TV and radio are over," GSP co-chairman Jeff Goodby tells Neil. If I heard a collective "Duh!" out there, consider this: "In its effort to avoid looking like marketing," Neil writes, "'Battle' manages to subvert its own client." Not something every brand is willing to try at home now, is it? "In work like this, perhaps it's the ad agency's clients who are getting the short end," Neil concludes.

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