Wipe off the milk mustaches and put down the glass. The famed “Got Milk?” slogan is no more, as the company behind the tagline has traded it in for a newer model.
The Milk Processor Education Program decided to retire the iconic slogan for a new line, “Milk Life.” The campaign, launching Monday, seeks to highlight milk’s nutritional benefits, specifically “the power of protein,” Ad Age reported.
“Got Milk has very high awareness,” Sal Taibi, president of Lowe Campbell Ewald, MilkPEP’s advertising agency, told Ad Age. “But we have a new strategy. We have a new message, and we just felt we needed a new approach.”
MilkPEP has been using the “Got Milk?” slogan since 1995, and the tagline became well known in advertisements that featured celebrities from David Beckham to President Bill Clinton donning milk mustaches. The organization plans to continue licensing the “Got Milk” phrase, though it is unclear how it will play into future campaigns.
However, the California Milk Processor board, which pioneered the “Got Milk” campaign, plans to continue using the tagline outright. The state group officially began using the slogan in 1993.
MilkPEP’s decision to abandon “Got Milk” comes after sales in the dairy category have crawled.
According to Euromonitor International, milk retail sales declined by approximately 1 percent in 2013. And MilkPEP will shell out more than $50 million to promote the new “Milk Life” campaign, with television, print and digital advertisements.
Ad Age reports one promotion, set to appear on TV, shows milk giving drinkers the energy they need to complete a variety of activities, from a mother and son playing together to a teenage girl rocking out on a guitar.
A print ad shows a break dancer spinning on his head, with the caption, “What 8 grams of protein looks like when you’re breaking the law of physics,” accompanying the image.
According to Julia Kadison, interim CEO of MilkPEP, protein is “really in the news and on consumer’s minds. … But a lot of people don’t know that milk has protein, so it’s very important to make that connection between milk and protein.”
Consumers can expect to see the new “Milk Life” ads during the morning hours, as this time period accounts for 50 percent of milk consumption.
Check out MilkPEP’s new ad below, courtesy of Ad Age.
