The Milk Mustache ("Milk. What a Surprise!")
National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board (MilkPEP)1995
The Milk Mustache ("Milk. What a Surprise!") is a 1995 magazine and poster campaign for National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board, created by Bozell Worldwide, New York.
Why it works
Famous faces with a white film on the upper lip, lit and posed like magazine covers. Launched in early 1995 by America's new national milk processors' promotion board, through Bozell Worldwide, the first ads put stars such as Lauren Bacall and Naomi Campbell under the line "Milk. What a surprise!" with brisk copy on nutrition, aimed at women who had drifted away from milk. The ads ran in more than 90 magazines, which USDA economists describe as the largest print buy ever made by a beverage advertiser. The board later took on California's "got milk?" line, and the mustache ran for some two decades with a revolving cast of celebrities. It is studied for the power of one endlessly repeatable visual device, and as a cautionary tale about fame versus sales: it never reversed the long national slide in milk drinking, and in 2014 the board replaced it as its lead campaign. The National Portrait Gallery holds Annie Leibovitz's 1995 Pete Sampras ad.
Techniques
- Testimonial and endorsement Stars such as Lauren Bacall and Naomi Campbell, lit and posed like magazine covers, lend their celebrity to an everyday drink.
- Visual metaphor A white film of milk on a famous upper lip becomes an endlessly repeatable visual shorthand showing that even stars drink milk.
- Logos Brisk copy on nutrition gives women who had drifted away from milk practical reasons to drink it again.
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