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In the grocery store milk was also advertised. There were miniature billboards on the grocery carts to make sure that people would remember to buy milk. This was a perfect way to remind people what it would be like to go home with the weeks groceries and to have forgotten milk. These constant reminders of possible deprivation worked wonders. Techniques and Audience Reaction There were two main techniques used in the “got milk??advertisements: deprivation and humor. Those elements, when used in tandem, were what brought the milk industry back to life. Deprivation was a key element to the campaign from the beginning. The tagline says it all: “got milk?? This method affects people on a very basic level and they turn it around and personalize it to their own lives. Everyone understands that deprivation of anything is to be avoided at all costs. People are generally dependant on milk, but take it for granted. It is associated with other foods, so it is rarely thought of independently, but since the taste of milk is unique it is also irreplaceable (Lanning, 1998, p. 105). Since, as the focus groups demonstrated, people already knew the health benefits steering towards a more perverse method proved refreshing. If deprivation were the soul, then humor was the heart of the “got milk??campaign. By using humor the campaign distinguished itself from most other advertisements; using humor was unprecedented and groundbreaking. The focus groups used by Goodby, Silverstien, and Partners showed that people attached value to humor. If an advertisement could make the audience laugh, then they would give their attention and their money. In advertising there are many different kinds of humor. Slapstick and smart or intellectual humor are just two, but what the creators of “got milk??found the most effective was the emotional humor. This is the humor that has a feeling of guilt or vengeance attached to it. This genre of humor was “in the pain?(Dawson, 1998, p. 198). What the focus groups showed regarding the humor was that after viewing an ad, the people would personalize it to themselves and retell their own humorous milk deprivation stories to each other. (Manning, 1999) Humorous desperation was the core of the “got milk??campaign, but not its only method of reaching its audience. Cross promotion became an integral part of the campaign as well. Because the focus groups showed that milk was associated with cereals, cookies, and many other foods it was logical for companies that produced those foods to get involved. These relationships worked especially well because the California Milk Processors Board put the needs of their partners first. These alliances were a wining situation for everyone involved: it helped cover the costs of promotion and gave additional advertising at a lower cost to the brands. Almost every product that conceivably goes well with milk was signed on. The cross promotion was brilliant. It made the connection between milk and food even more clear and increased the reach of the “got milk??campaign. There were alliances with all of the important food companies including Kraft, Kelloggs, Quaker Oats, Nabisco, Entenmanns, Keebler, Nestle, Pillsbury, Dole, and even Girl Scouts. It challenged people with: ‘what good is cereal, cookies, or any baked good without milk?? The partnerships themselves made way for a wider variety of techniques. They featured stickers on Dole bananas, coupons in magazines or on product packaging. (Manning, 1999) Along with cross promotions with popular products, “got milk??also used merchandising. By selling products with the “got milk??logo the campaign was able to create a cult culture surrounding it, giving milk a sense of coolness and hip-ness that it had previously lacked. There were “got milk??baby cloths, “got milk??t-shirts, and even “got milk??golf balls.
Approximate Word count = 2462
Approximate Pages = 9.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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