The Most Overrated Ad Campaign of All Time

What Got milk? got wrong (and how to avoid it)

⚠️ Warning: if you grew up in the 90s and have warm fuzzy nostalgic feelings towards Got milk?, this may make you feel defensive.

But, do not fret. I am not going to attack your fond memories. Let's park those to one side. They were after all, fun ads that permeated into the zeitgeist and captured the feeling of an era and generation.

What I am going to criticise is the outcome of the campaign from a business results perspective. Plus, what to learn from this.

When I say "campaign", I am referring to the collective activations and media that utilised the Got milk? and 'milk moustache' strategy nationally across the U.S. from the mid-90s until 2014 (when it was finally put out to pasture).

Why?

Got milk? is one of the most revered advertising campaigns of all time. It's 3 decades old and people are still talking about it.

Consumers loved it. The media loved it. Ad folk were envious and wanted to replicate it's resonance (and still do).

In 2002, Al and Laura Ries wrote that "no advertising campaign has attracted as much attention as the milk moustache Got milk? program".

The campaign crossed over into pop culture. It became a meme that was copied and parodied endlessly in society, top to bottom.

“From Leno to Letterman, sitcoms to movies, greeting cards too T-shirts.”

Just about everybody who was anybody in the 90s appeared in the ads: Bill Clinton, Jennifer Aniston, Venus and Serena Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, John Elway, Kelsey Grammer, Naomi Campbell, Britney Spears, Beyoncé, and Bart Simpson are just a splash of examples.

Through the lens of mind share and "talk value”, Got milk? was a cream-of-the-crop advertising success.

It achieved a 90%+ level of awareness across the US and — according to Jeff Manning, the 'Godfather of Got milk?' — it flipped the perception of milk from boring to "cool".

Hell, I grew up in the UK and I knew about it. So did my friends. That's how viral and permeating it was.

On the surface, it's any marketers creamy dream.

In the aftermath the ad industry congratulated itself. Creativity was applauded as the saviour of a dull and commoditised product category.

The first commercial in the campaign — 'Aaron Burr' — won the 'Best in Show' award at the 1994 Clios (the Oscars for ads).

As a result, agencies wanted to deliver the next Got milk? for clients.

Seemingly everyone pointed to the campaign as a new benchmark measure of advertising success. Even Steve Jobs, did.

It's funny, there was — and still is — an assumption that any campaign with such wide recognition and resonance must have been super successful in terms of generating more sales (whether or not it's true).

I call this famous ad bias — "it must have worked".

Today, marketing influencers still use Got milk? as a case study, attempting to reverse engineer the psychological principles of its perceived success.

Except, they shouldn't. Unless, it's a lesson in a mistake to avoid.

Why?

Like clockwork, consumption of milk decreased year-on-year across the U.S. throughout the lifetime of the Got milk? campaign.

This occurred even during the 90s, when it was fresh and hit its pop culture peak:

Al and Laura Ries rhetorically asked "if the milk mustache campaign is America's favorite advertising campaign, why isn't milk America's favorite beverage?"

It's a frothy question.

All Got milk? achieved was making the ad famous.

Got famous? Yes.

Got sales? No.

But — it did increase the perceived prestigiousness of the agency (GS&P) that came up with it, continuing to perpetuate the MO that 'creativity is king' on Madison Avenue.

Got clients? Yes.

Agencies at that time would've pointed to the fact it generated widespread "talk value" and awareness (this is a much more convenient metric of success, than you know, selling more stuff).

Here's the problem, though: Milk made people buy into Got milk?, and not the other way around. Folks didn't consume more milk as a whole because of it.

Call me milk-coma crazy, but I hold advertising accountable for profitably increasing sales and revenue.

That's, after all, what shareholders want.

Yes, it's not straightforward to scientifically attribute "for our campaign spend of $X we achieved $Y" — particularly for above the line (broadcast communication) activations.

But, it is possible to conclude a general sense of effectiveness. Especially when the campaign runs consistently for many years and you account for other factors that may have materially influenced sales (e.g. supply chain disruption).

If sales are falling consistently, up to and including the lengthy period a campaign is running, surely it isn't working that well.

"Like, duh" in 90s lingo.

Let's look into the numbers.

Got milk? ran for 20 years and failed to plateau the persistent year-on-year fall in milk consumption, let alone reverse it.

In fact, the drop in consumption became worse.

In 1990, per capita consumption had fallen to 0.78 cups per person per day — in 1980 it was 0.84 (a 0.06 drop)

In 2000, per capita consumption had fallen to 0.69 cups per person per day (a 0.09 drop from 1990).

In other words, the rate of decrease accelerated by 50% during the decade in which Got milk? launched and had its cultural heydey.

Further, total milk sales continued to fall or stagnate even as the population was rising.

In 1990, 21.3m lbs of milk were sold to a U.S. population of 250m.

In 1995, 18.6m lbs of milk were sold to a U.S. population of 266m.

In 2000, 18.6m lbs of milk were sold to a U.S. population of 282m.

By 2014 (when Got milk? got canned nationwide), 13.8m lbs of milk were sold to a U.S. population of 318m.

Now, there have been one or two studies which have concluded the campaign increased milk sales by single digit percentages versus if the campaign "had not run", using some impressive mental gymnastics.

But, c'mon. Let's be real.

If you ran a business (or represented an industry), would you be happy with those increasingly declining sales results?

Particularly with how much exposure the ad campaign got. Sales should have splurted. I can only assume they were sucking back on some pretty strong milky cool aid at the time.

Think about it.

Not only is Got milk? one of the most well-known ad campaigns ever, it's also unprecedented in the amount of celebrities that participated and endorsed it.

The A-list exposure was insane. Particularly given there was a general vibe they were not getting paid much (or at all) to do it. They totally milked it.

Imagine if you had a product and all those celebrities suddenly jumped on board to endorse it so publicly and visibly. Plus, the national media coverage.

You'd expect sales to go up, up, up.

If you're a brand nerd you might tell me that Got milk? was a ‘brand equity’ type deal and that it takes time for that to payoff with net new customer demand. Except, in this case it would be ‘category equity’.

Again, c'mon.

What's the timeline, here? Is all that equity going to pay off in the 2030s?

Like, people are going to rush out and buy more milk then, because they saw Britney Spears in an ad 30 years prior? Hit me baby, one more time.

For a FMCG (fast-moving consumer good), an increase in demand should be measurable quickly. We aren't selling database software to Fortune 500 companies, here.

So, where did Got milk? go wrong?

The heart of the issue concerns the perception of milk versus its competitive alternatives. Which, were increasingly sodas, juice drinks, sports drinks and iced tea (alternative milks weren't a big deal then).

People were drinking those more instead, causing the sale of milk to go down.

Therefore, what a campaign for milk should have done is reposition milk against those competitive alternatives. To have surfaced a perceived strength of milk that exposed a weakness in its competitive alternatives.

In addition to existing habits and perceived benefits, it would've unlocked new use cases and value. This would've generated net-new demand.

Instead, the agency behind Got milk? went down a different route.

In their research, they correctly identified that running out of milk was an upsetting moment for the consumer. Particularly, if you need it for cereal or to go with your chocolate chip cookie (super sad moment, btw 😢).

In other words, milk was usually consumed with food of some variety. Without milk, that food accompaniment was far less enjoyable.

So, they played on the anxiety of running out of milk. This became known as the 'depravation strategy' and became the core idea of the campaign.

In a lot of the early ads, they used specific foods associated with consuming milk as a mental trigger to surface the feeling of being without milk in that moment. The first TV commercial used a peanut butter sandwich.

On the surface, this seems pretty smart. Leveraging emotion potently reminds folks how much they need milk in their lives in certain contexts.

Except, there's a problem.

With this strategy, all you are basically doing is re-affirming milk's perception in the mind of the consumer.

If the category is growing, this is a sound strategy. You grow by reminding.

However, milk sales were going down due to its relative perception versus competitive alternatives.

Sure, milk maybe "cooler" than it was before because of Got milk?, but all that achieved was making the consumer feel better about their existing purchase habit.

In other words, Got milk? reminded consumers to buy milk they would have bought otherwise. Consumers were being prodded to buy milk for consumption with their existing habits and to obtain existing perceived benefits.

Firstly, there's only so much milk you need with your peanut butter sandwich and corn flakes. Secondly, and more importantly, these habits and perceived benefit needs were on the decline.

This issue is still playing out today. Though, now, milk has to contend with alternative milks like soya, almond, and oat. Which, unlike soda and juices, also dips a straw in milk's key consumption trigger products — cereal, cookies, coffee, etc.

In short: Milk needed a repositioning in the 90s. What it got was a famous ad that re-affirmed its existing (weakening) positioning.

Got plan? The milk industry is working on it. It’s now making an entirely new mistake (UPDATE: I wrote about it here).

That’s it for today. I’ll be back in your inbox soon. 🤘

Martin

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