Dairy sector stakeholders attending the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) Dairy Forum 2014 in Palm Springs, California last week were treated to a sneak preview of MilkPEP’s latest efforts to market white milk to America.
Its creations, Milk Life and The Great American Milk Drive, are respectively designed to promote the consumption of protein-rich milk at breakfast and highlight the need for milk in US hunger-relief programs.
On the back of the new campaigns, MilkPEP hopes to “propel milk back into a position of power.”
“We know that to achieve this, milk has to have a really strong positioning,” Julia Kadison, interim CEO of MilkPEP, told a packed session.
“Not only do we have to capture the minds of people by making sure they understand why it’s relevant and important for them to drink milk - and in 2014 and for the foreseeable future we will be taking about protein and the benefits of protein - but we also have to capture their hearts.”
“If milk is the superhero, protein is the superpower”
The first of its two new campaigns, Milk Life, will be launched on 24 February and supported by a combination of television and print adverts designed to push the “power of protein” during breakfast.
“Our powerful positioning is this – milk at breakfast powers your potential,” said Kadison.
“And the reason to believe that is the case is that milk is a natural source of high-quality protein."
"There is eight grams of protein in every eight ounces of milk. We’re going to make sure that consumers know that.”
“We believe this will become our next 20 year campaign,” said Kadison.
Weighing in on the Milk Life campaign, Miriam Erikson Brown, CEO of Anderson Erikson Dairy and MilkPEP board member, said: “…if milk is the superhero, protein is the superpower.”
“Another reason” to buy milk
The Great American Milk Drive, the brainchild of Dairy Management Inc (DMI), the National Dairy Council (NDC), MilkPEP, and hunger-relief charity Feeding America, is meanwhile scheduled to launch in late March.
Through the program, which will be supported by television, print, and digital advertising, and social media, MilkPEP hopes to address the hunger faced by one in six people in the US, including 16m children, by making it “easier for Americans to buy milk for local food banks.”
“It’s going to give them another reason to purchase another gallon of milk,” said Kadison, “not for their own consumption but to help other families who cannot afford it themselves.”
“…in the end we think that these programs can help bring milk back to the position of being an unquestioned good – not only by communicating the health benefits of milk and the reasons that everybody needs to consume it themselves, but also for the social good which we are going to bring forward with The Great American Milk Drive," she added.