Maybe They’re Milking This Theme Dry

Advertiser: California Milk Processor Board

Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco

Challenge: Up the emotional level of the 4-year-old Got Milk? campaign.

The Ads: Two television commercials humorously dramatize the effects of milk deprivation. In one ad, an eccentric old woman is terrorized by her dozens of mutinous pet cats after she feeds them nondairy creamer because she’s out of milk. In the second ad, a carnival-goer with a mouthful of doughnuts enters a hall of mirrors and becomes frustrated when he cannot distinguish the carton of milk he placed on the floor from its many reflections.

Comment: These ads replace the Drysville campaign, a series of four black-and-white “documercials” depicting life in a town without milk. According to the milk board, consumers didn’t emotionally connect with the fictitious Drysville. The new spots, like the original ads, explore the consequences of unexpectedly being without milk. But they try too hard. The elderly woman (unlike the nasty business executive condemned to an afterlife without milk in a previous ad) doesn’t seem to deserve her fate. And for the carnival-goer, escaping from the maze (he keeps bumping into its mirrored walls) seems a higher priority than finding the milk. Previous ads in the popular Got Milk? campaign set a high standard that’s hard to beat. $$+

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Ads are rated from $ to $$$$, based on probable effectiveness and tastefulness, with $$$$ being best.