• by Karl Greenberg , April 11, 2007

The California Milk Processor Board has launched the latest iteration of the "Got Milk?" campaign and the first that includes an online gaming component, along with a series of 30-second and 60-second TV spots. Goodby Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco, handles.

The new effort, "Get the glass," posits a "Fort Fridge"--established to safeguard earth's last glass of milk. Ads this month and next, in California, include "Get the glass for cash," contest, in which contestants have to keep one hand on "Fort Fridge" longer than anybody else. The winner gets $5,000 in cash, a year's supply of milk, a sports activity package and gifts.

The Internet game is a 3-D site looks like a board game with dice. Players have to answer trivia questions and confront other players to reach Fort Fridge while overcoming handicaps caused by the lack of milk--brittle bones, weak muscles, insomnia, PMS and broken nails.

The first 30 contestants to score 500 points in five minutes online get to participate in a live game, in which they have to keep a hand on a real, albeit giant, glass of milk. The last person standing wins the cash prize. The contest, as well as the interactive game, is at gotmilk.com.

Steve James, executive director of the California Milk Processor Board, says that since the national board has its own agency and marketing budget, it's unlikely creative elements of the campaign will roll nationwide. Still, the national board licenses the "Got Milk?" tag-line for use in its own advertising, "So there will be some overlap in TV and print; what we do here in California is offered to national and other state boards, but they tend not to pick it up since it would basically double their costs."

The milk moustache is not a California program, but the national element of "Got Milk?" The California board, which launched in 1993, created the first "Got Milk?" campaign that year. At the national level, marketing spend--including the use of "Got Milk?"--is $150 million per year, per the California board.

James says the issue for milk is not so much awareness, per se, but awareness of milk--especially among younger consumers--as a kind of commodity lacking the brand personality and youth appeal of the profusion of sodas, waters, energy drinks and, more recently, soy milks and other milk alternatives. "The proliferation of choices is staggering, so there is an awareness problem when you consider that, while milk is one of the most pervasive products, people take it for granted. Our job is, on a very meager budget compared to other beverages, to keep milk on top of people's minds, and we hope to accomplish that by creative advertising that keeps people interested, sparks conversation and awareness. We have to remind people that real milk has nutritional benefits."

James says awareness of "Got Milk?" is consistently high, with unaided awareness over 90%. "But if you talk about how successful the campaign has been in boosting consumption, it's more difficult because of fluctuating milk prices."

Still, he says that, in California, the board has enjoyed nine months straight of year-over-year increases, the longest stretch of increases in milk sales to date. James says the new campaign targets teens and young consumers--particularly females, who, because of peer pressure tend not to drink milk if they can avoid it.

"Milk drinking peaks in the pre-teen years, and then we have historically tended to lose teenage girls, who have issues around peer pressure self awareness, diet, skin, which ironically are things milk is good for. So we are hoping to have some of the 'cool' effect of the advertising rub off on teen girls and teenagers in general--that it's cool to be healthy and drink milk."