Got Milk-y Marketing?

Since 1993, no other ad slogan has gained as much attention and been abused more than “got milk?”.  According to GotMilk.com, the campaign has over 90% awareness in the United States!

The idea came from the ad agency Goodby Silverstein who was hired by the California Milk Processor Board.  It all started with this first “got milk?” commercial produced by Michael Bay, which was later nominated as one of the best 10 commercials of all time in a USA Today Poll:

From this ad spot and many more that followed, a successful brand was born.  The problem is: Most people fail to recognize that a brand is not just a logo, slogan, or name.  Album defines it as the “perceptions and expectations of your customers and prospects.”  In other words, it’s what people feel, expect, and hope when they think of you.  “You” is an appropriate word, because a brand is human.  It carries a personality just like the people around us.

But this isn’t a lecture about branding, this is a post to show the lack of creativity and blatant misunderstanding of what made “got milk” so popular.  Hint, hint, it wasn’t this magic formula:

Got [replace "milk" with your amazing product] ?

Enjoy these brilliant examples.  Since they asked, I answered:

Ah man, I don’t have any on me today.  When I do, I’ll let you know.

Actually, I do.  I’ve found that the ground is the best place to find it.

You mean, do I have a raft?  Or have I gone rafting before?  Oh, I’m sorry, you’d like to see my new rafting.  Yeah, I’ve got a rafting right here.

Hey, congrats!  I’m happy you “got video phone.” You’re really movin’ up in life.

Not anymore.  At least not for more abusive “got milk” examples.

Tags: advertising, media, slogans

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 4:38 pm and is filed under Creativity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.