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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Got Milk?

I like milk - its usually my drink of choice with meals and I prefer it to yoghurt on my breakfast cereal.

One thing that really annoys me about milk though is the campaign of billboard posters with various B list celebrities drinking milk and ending up with milk moustaches. The campaign has been going on for long time and is just accepted as normal but when you actually stop and think about it, its a really strange concept. How come none of these people learned to drink properly and why don't they wipe their faces.

I'm not sure why the milk board think that seeing someone with milk on their face will encourage us to buy their product but I think someone should point out its kinda disgusting. At best, getting milk on your face is an unfortunete and unwanted side affect of drinking milk. Its not its most desireable quality by a long way.

Imagine they used the same concept with other products, using their unwanted side effects as the hook for an advert. For example an advert for Campbell's tomato soup with a grinning child with big orange stains all over his face, or a bottle of red wine with a pretty woman smiling and showing off her wine blackened teeth or think what you could do with Heinz baked beans!!

I wonder how much the milk board pays for these people to be in their adverts? And I wonder what the stars say to their agents when they find out they've been booked for the gig - there are not many people who can manage to have milk on their face and still look good. I mean is anyone looking at these guys and going "hey, they've got milk on their face, I need to get me some of that."
In preperation of this post I did a google search for some of the UK adverts, only to discover that the milk moustache is not just a UK advertising strategy. Here the campaign is known by its slogan "the right stuff" but in the US by the slogan "Got milk". In both the concept is the same, a celebrity face covered in milk, the difference between the two is the calabre of the people advertising the milk - here while we currently have Gordon Ramsey and Pixie Lott, the americans have got Batman, Glen Close and Andre Agassi's mum. Check the link and see if you think anyone doesn't look like a plonker.

Other countries are tackling it in different ways, some more successful than others - Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Angola.

Weirdest advert I saw is this one from Singapore. When I first saw the image I thought we'd found an even odder way to advertise milk than the milkface concept but having done a bit of research its actually a photo company called milk and not drink that is being advertised. (Still pretty weird though.)

Anyway, the whole milkface thing has just annoyed me today as I saw another of the billboards as I was walking along the road. I haven't even really got a suggestion for an alternative, its just annoyed me. Not sure what I'd prefer, I quite enjoy the bonkers adverts with the cow, cyclist and pirate by Cravendale and their simple poster series, they are a heck of a weird set but quite good fun.

From my quick google search online it seems there is quite a depth of adverts from around the world to draw upon. Would make an interesting little article/ docu for someone.

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