Got Milk?

Sasha Cohen Lands a 10 with Milk Sasha Cohen is one of the first celebs/athletes to join the ‘Body by Milk’ campaign, created to encourage teens to grab lowfat milk instead of sugary sodas because – along with staying active and eating right – it may help them achieve a healthy weight. Other stars sporting the iconic 'stache in the new campaign include David Beckham, Carrie Underwood and Alex Rodriguez. The ad copy reads “Talk about a skating figure.  Some studies suggest teens who choose milk tend to be leaner, plus the protein helps build muscle. Staying active, eating right and drinking 3 glasses a day of lowfat or fat free milk, instead of sugary drinks helps you look your best.  That's one routine I've got down cold.” The ad debuts in the October issue of Cosmo Girl on stands September 13.

August 31, 2006

Body by milk: More than just a white moustache

By JANE L. LEVERE
New York Times News Service

Faced with declining milk consumption by teenagers, dairy companies are embarking on an advertising campaign with sports and entertainment celebrities and interactive features that they hope will win young people over.

Backed by a budget of approximately $20 million -- one-third of the milk processors' annual advertising expenditures -- the campaign is the latest iteration of their famous "Got milk?" advertising, which since 1995 has featured celebrities with milk mustaches.

The new campaign's message -- that studies suggest "teens who choose milk tend to be leaner, plus the protein helps build muscle" -- carries the theme "Body by milk" and is reinforced by a new Web site, www.bodybymilk.com. This message is generating criticism among doctors and nutrition experts, who question its conclusions.

The campaign comes at a particularly volatile time not only for milk processors, but also for all beverage manufacturers.

The Beverage Marketing Corp., a consulting company, says per capita milk consumption has generally declined each year since 1975. Taylor Nelson Sofres, a marketing research and information company, has found steadily decreasing per capita consumption among teenagers 13 to 17 in the last three years. Beverage Digest, a trade publication, reported that the number of cases of soda sold in the United States fell last year for the first time in 20 years, as consumers sought greater variety in drinks and healthier diets.

The timing of the new milk processors' campaign is "almost kind of like a perfect storm, with the concerns of health experts, schools, parents, the target, media," said Sal Taibi, president of Lowe New York, which created the campaign. Lowe is a unit of Lowe Worldwide, part of the Interpublic Group of Cos.

The campaign features four celebrities chosen for their physiques and appeal to teenagers: the soccer star David Beckham; Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees third baseman; Sasha Cohen, the ice skater; and Carrie Underwood from "American Idol."

Each appears individually in a full-page ad that promotes milk as a way to help teenagers lose weight and build muscle. The ads also claim that "staying active, eating right, and drinking three glasses a day of low-fat or fat-free milk instead of sugary drinks helps you look your best." They end with the question, "Got milk?"

Processors' previous ads for teenagers stressed milk's ability to promote growth and provide calcium. The new messages should appeal to teenagers, said Kurt Graetzer, chief executive of the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, which represents the processors, "because they are very concerned about weight and appearance."
"Milk can be part of the solution," Graetzer said.

The ads will make their debut in the September issues of magazines read by teenagers, like Blender, CosmoGirl, Seventeen, Electronic Gaming, Spin and Sports Illustrated for Kids. The celebrities will also appear in posters that will be distributed, through school food service directors, in more than 100,000 schools.

The campaign's interactive components include a page on MySpace.com and banner ads on Web sites like Alloy.com, Bolt.com; Facebook.com and Gamezone.com.
The new bodybymilk.com Web site was created by the Chicago office of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, part of Interpublic.

The site features an "auction" in which visitors can bid each day for merchandise -- from companies like Adidas, the sports apparel maker; Baby Phat, a clothing maker; Fender, the guitar manufacturer; and CCS, which makes skateboards -- using bar code or expiration date information from milk containers. The auction is managed by the Chicago office of Draft, a marketing communications company that is also part of Interpublic. Visitors to the site can also create their own milk mustache ads.

A number of doctors and nutrition experts challenge the ads' statements about milk's ability to help teenagers lose weight and build muscle.

Barry M. Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, said the public would ignore the exact language of the ads, which says studies "suggest teens who choose" milk tend to be leaner.

"They will quickly leap to the assumption that drinking more milk will get them to lose weight," he said.

Dr. David S. Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston and an author of a report released in March on soda consumption among teenagers, said: "The purpose of the campaign is clearly to sell product and not to inform the public. If the purpose were to inform the public, then positive, neutral and negative studies should be presented in a balanced way."

A New York consultant who specializes in marketing to young consumers, Irma Zandl, said that although she thought "Body by milk" was a "great idea," the ads' execution was "too generic."

"It doesn't sound fresh," she said. "It doesn't get teenagers to think about milk in a new way; it sounds educational, schoolmarmish."

But Michael C. Bellas, chairman and chief executive of the Beverage Marketing Corp., called the campaign "wonderful" and commended the milk processors for their timing.
The teenage years "are a crucial time when people start forming their drinking habits," he said. "If you can improve their consumption of milk, they will take those drinking habits with them as they age."

Visit new campaign for "Got Milk?"