Sure, milk does a body good.
But in the fast-paced world where portability ranks higher on consumers' priority lists than nutrition, good old milk was losing ground to soda, juice and other grab-and-go beverages on the refrigerator shelves.
Dean Foods Co., among the country's largest dairy processors and distributors, decided to change the face of milk - and we're not talking about a white mustache. Starting at the end of 1997, the company developed the Milk Chug. Sold in pints, quarts and 8-ounce multi-packs, Dean Foods put its entire line in convenient, plastic, resealable bottles to be sold in grocery and convenience stores.
"Before Milk Chugs, on-the-go customers would have a hard time fitting milk into their diet on a daily basis," says Howard Dean, Dean Foods chairman and CEO. The Chugs are small enough to fit in car cup-holders and can be finished before any curdling sets in.
But it's still milk, not a particularly glamorous pitching opportunity.
"Milk itself is not a very revolutionary image," says Victoria Ricks, senior account executive with Chicago-based Dome*Newmark*Wolf Communications. "We had to promote the position that this format was universally different from anything that had been seen before. It was good old milk, but an exciting new way of drinking it."
The firm's initial research showed it might have been easier to get ink for Lamar Alexander's presidential campaign. Because milk is a mainstay commodity, DNW found that Milk Chugs could easily be dismissed as a less-than-newsworthy new product in a sleepy category.
"What was really significant about a new milk bottle when the increasingly competitive beverage industry produced cooler, sexier, more marketing-savvy beverages every day?" asks DNW Doug Dome, managing partner. "It became apparent to DNW that the answer to this question may be self-evident. It was completely bold and unexpected for a dairy company to produce a slick package that attempted to go head-to-head with today's contemporary juices and sodas. Clearly, the Milk Chugs must be positioned as a revolution, the renaissance of the milk category."
DNW decided to avoid any of milk's traditional symbols and developed messages and events that would mirror the innovative feel of the product.
From filling a full-sized, ad-wrapped city bus in Chicago with Milk Chugs, to conducting a highly publicized surprise assembly at the school of the student who guessed closest to the number of Chugs in the bus, to a Milk Chug pitching contest covered on the Diamondvision screen at the St. Louis Cardinals' Busch Stadium, DNW went away from the norm to get people thinking about milk.
The national campaign from the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board featuring stars and athletes with milk mustaches also gave the Chugs a boost.
"We were able to play off the awareness of the 'Got Milk?' campaign," Ricks says. "It was the perfect position for us because suddenly milk was cool, and we were able to make it cooler and more a part of people's lives."
DNW's job was to generate some interest and awareness of the Chugs among kids (ages 6-12), teens (13-17), young males (18-24) and moms (18-44) in its regional roll-out markets. The firm would not disclose the cost of the campaign.
For the weeks following the initial product launch, DNW made ongoing follow-ups to targeted editors, arranged interviews and fielded calls from hundreds of reporters. Regional story placements drove national interest with The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Business Week and others writing substantial pieces about the new hipness of milk.
To date, the PR program has generated more than 112 million impressions in media coverage alone, not including those touched by extensive sampling events and promotions. And it is selling milk. Total line launch results in Florida show sales increases in quarts of 37 percent and in pints in of 47 percent. In Illinois and Wisconsin, quart sales have grown 25 percent and pint sales have grown 98 percent. On the chocolate side, Milk Chugs added $3.9 million to the $10.4 million single serve chocolate milk category since Nov. 1997.
"We set out to change the way people look at milk," Ricks says, "and I think we've done that." (Howard Dean, Dean Foods Co., 847/678-1680; Doug Dome and Victoria Ricks, Dome Newmark Wolf, 312/467-0760.)
Dome*Newmark*Wolf
Number of Employees: 20
Number of Clients: 16
Founded: 1997
Yearly Net Fee Income: $1.5 million