The advert marketing campaign ultimately was retired in 2014, with entrepreneurs on the Milk Processor Schooling Program (MilkPEP) turning to extra relatable, “actual individuals” providing testimonials about their “Milk Life,” the tagline adopted to switch “Acquired Milk?” (It’s now utilizing “Gonna Want Milk” in a marketing campaign that promotes milk as a gas for energetic existence.)
However this week, Large Dairy revived the enduring motif. In a video that was posted on YouTube and different social channels and in addition runs as a TV advert, actress Aubrey Plaza sports activities that acquainted creamy arc over her higher lip. The spot instantly marks itself as a spoof. “Have you ever ever checked out a tree and thought, ‘Can I drink this?’” she asks dreamily. “I did.”
She is recognized because the founding father of a fictitious product known as Wooden Milk, “the world’s first and solely milk created from wooden,” which viewers may begin to sense is a mockery of the huge array of nondairy milks which have sprung up like so many seedlings. That hunch is confirmed as Plaza describes how Wooden Milk is made: it’s “squished right into a slime that’s authorized to promote,” she intones.
That’s definitely a dig. To the chagrin of the (cow) milk trade, the Meals and Drug Administration has indicated it can enable drinks created from oat, soy, and different merchandise to proceed advertising themselves as “milk,” and that class is surging in reputation because the OG milk stays in regular decline.
The brand new advert finishes with the reveal, when Plaza takes a sip of her product and it leaves that telltale mustache — identical to those from milk’s unique marketing campaign — solely this one seems to be prefer it has bits of sawdust clinging to it. “Is wooden milk actual? Completely not. Solely actual milk is actual,” she says, then pauses. “Then what did I spend money on?!”
And so concluded the revival of an promoting juggernaut, solely remodeled for these wildly completely different occasions.
“We needed to create a standout, satirical piece that shines a lightweight on the truth that many individuals have no idea the dietary worth of their drinks — or lack thereof,” MilkPEP chief govt Yin Woon Rani wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Put up. “Not all milk is created equal in relation to the dietary profile.”
Customers, notably the youthful millennials and Gen Zers that Large Dairy desires so badly to win again from the clutches of oat milk and its plant-based ilk, are evermore cynical — and so simple testimonials from the wealthy and well-known telling us how good milk is for us merely aren’t the order of the day.
Gary Wilcox, a professor of media and advertising on the College of Texas at Austin, says the brand new advert shares a few of the DNA of its predecessor, but it surely has developed to succeed in an endlessly scrolling youthful shopper. “It’s a tough goal to succeed in,” he says. “They’ve a brief consideration span except you do one thing to get their consideration.”
Making an attempt to recapture the milk mustache mojo might need been an not possible process. However it seems that though the “Acquired Milk?” advertisements have been a real cultural touchstone, the marketing campaign was not profitable at truly promoting the American individuals on a product, Wilcox notes. Milk gross sales declined steadily whilst celebrities lined as much as be part of it.
And milk mustaches have already been deployed with irony: Plant-based model Silk Nextmilk earlier this 12 months ran ads that includes nepo-babies akin to Brooklyn Beckham (the son of soccer legend David Beckham and Spice Lady Victoria Beckham) and Ella Bleu Travolta (the daughter of actor John Travolta and the late Kelly Preston), whose dad and mom had as soon as posed for the unique dairy marketing campaign.
The selection to make use of Plaza because the face of the plant-milk spoof was calibrated, in fact. The “White Lotus” star’s deadpan supply and off-kilter roles have made her considered one of her technology’s most zeitgeist-y stars. (Slate anointed her “the millennial John Cusack.”)
This time round, the cynicism of youthful shoppers may run even deeper than the advert execs realized, and even the beloved actress couldn’t escape the backlash.
“By no means thought I’d see Aubrey Plaza selling dairy milk propaganda however right here we’re,” tweeted one disenchanted fan. “I’m so heartbroken y’all,” wrote one other. “Aubrey Plaza out right here doing advertisements for the dairy trade making an attempt to make enjoyable of plant milks by shilling ‘wooden milk.’ Aubrey how might you!”
MilkPEP was clearly hoping for on-line buzz. “However campaigns with the hope of buzz and virality run the danger of shedding management,” says Anindya Ghose, a advertising professor at New York College’s Stern Faculty of Enterprise. “Negativity spreads quicker than positivity, so it’s a slippery slope, and there’s a hazard that issues can go south.”
