Got Milk Case Essay Example for Free

Got Milk Case Essay The case deals with milk losing its appeal among the school children and the increasing preference to soft drinks in the US during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. California people were drinking less milk every year. Milk consumption per capita in California had dropped 6 percent between 1987 and 1992. Realizing that the dairy industry is declining and needed outside assistance, the California Department of Food and Agriculture formed the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) in 1993. A few months later the CMPB released it’s famous ‘‘Got Milk? ’’ campaign. For this purpose they hired Jeff Manning as executive director and raised a reasonable budget for promotion. The ad agency Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (GSP) created ‘‘Got Milk? ’’ with the CMPB’s $23 million annual budget. Previous campaigns had been intended at people who did not consume milk, but the agency’s research led it to target a sundry audience: people who were already milk drinkers. The consumers of California responded the campaign quickly, embracing the ads and also started consuming more milk. In USA outside California, the milk moustache ‘Got Milk?’ campaign is jointly funded by Americas milk processors and dairy farmers: The Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) and Dairy Management. The goal of the multi-faceted campaign is to educate consumers on the benefits of milk and to raise milk consumption. The campaign was founded on a milk deprivation strategy and recognized that milk is not often a stand-alone beverage. Its consumption is permanently linked to a select number of meals and food occasions. And also, perhaps, the only time anybody cares passionately about milk is when they run out. The campaign was very successful in the USA. BRIEF OVERVIEW AND FACTS * According to the Exibit#1 from 1980 to 1993 annual milk consumption in California dropped from around 29 to 24 gallons of milk per person. * Milk industry spends less than 10 percent what beer spent on media. * The change in school district policy in 1982, which increases the options for children in lunch further reduce the milk consumption. * Two major reasons for declining in milk consumption are: the modern family size was shrinking and the number of working women had increased. * Hispanic population was increasing in USA (California in particular) and they drank significantly more whole milk than the rest of the population. MAJOR ISSUES AND PROBLEMS * Got milk? Campaign was a huge success in California resulted in quick increase in milk consumption but it was not equally successful nationally or internationally. National sales continue to decline for some time and then stables up to some extent but didn’t increased like in the California. * The milk market was declining market as compared to beverages market. Consumer study revealed that there are some reasons behind the continuous decline like proliferation of other beverages, lack of portability, lack of flavor variety, not thirst quenching, lack of consumer mind share and shared nature of consumption. * High price of milk in California during 1999 as compared to the rest of the country was another major issue as compared to its competitor beverages industry. Positioning milk as cool refreshing and energy boosting drink suffered due to its increasing prices also results in declining in sales. * Mind set of consumer. Although many people drink milk everyday, but still milk suffered a complete lack of consumer mind share. Milk has always been a somewhat forgettable beverage. * Media spending in the beverage categories approached $ 2 billion with half of the total accounted for beer and soft drinks but still Milk being a commodity suffered from lack of promotion as compared to the other beverages. Budget is also very low as compared to other similar category products. * Marketing expenditures are more or less concentrated on television advertising and billboards. Lack of BTL activities, experiential marketing and social event promotion were evident which can be one of the reasons of low recall and decline in consumption. * Considering the nature and storage limitation of milk the consumer attitude towards milk was wobbly and strong reasons to change the attitude were required. * Lack of support from the farmers and local milk processor results in small budget. Considering the size of the milk industry and high promotional cost running a successful nation wide campaign in small budget is rarely possible. Where Got Milk? Went wrong? * Hispanics were the major milk consumers in California; there population was increasing at a constant rate according to the US census. Initially when the ads were made it was found that running out of milk or rice in Hispanic family is not considered funny also the translation of got milk in Spanish is quite weird. * Got milk? took a step away from its deprivation formula in October 1997 and launched a new campaign of Drysville. But research revealed that Drysville campaign was unable to effect consumer’s immediate consumption or purchase decision. ANALYSIS OF PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY The ‘Got Milk? Promotional campaign has some objectives, Manning begin a grass root campaign keeping in mind the following objectives. * To change the public’s behavior about the consumption of milk and other milk products * To create the idea of ‘‘milk occasions’’ by associating the product with certain foods, recognizing that milk is not often a stand-alone beverage. * To control the decline in sales by persuading people to buy milk more often and in larger quantities. To achieve each of the objectives Manning carefully designed strategies, like changing behavior, in addition to attitudes, was done with carefully placed media. A consumption strategy focused on organizing the appropriate food with the time of day that a commercial was telecast (for example, a cereal commercial in the morning or late at night), because most milk drinking occurred at home. Beside the TVC, in 1998 CMPB launched a gravity tour. In this tour they travelled throughout the state high schools and featured top professionals and insisted on the importance of milk to young athletes and there bone density. In 2003 the CMPB took milks health message to a new level and developed the theme: strength comes from within†. They also signify and highlight the importance of research on milk benefits including how to increase bone mass in teens and adult and prevent them from osteoporosis. PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY UPSHOTS The Got Milk campaign was very successful and worked more than the expectations. Following are some of the upshots of the campaign. * The original objectives of the campaign were exceeded. * ‘Got Milk? ’’ had overtaken the ‘‘long-running ‘Does a Body Good’ campaign in top-of-mind awareness by mid-1994. ’ * The campaign objective to change behavior and increase milk consumption was also met. * Household penetration had increased from 70 percent in 1993 to 74 percent in 1995. * Results showed that, except for the first two months of the campaign, milk consumption in California increased over the previous year, while it declined nationally * Dairy Management, Inc. ’s decided to take the California ‘‘Got Milk? ’’ campaign nationwide in 1995 * The ‘‘Got Milk? ’’ campaign made its mark in advertising by collecting nearly every industry award * The CMPB reported that the campaign had a 97 percent awareness rate in California. HOW TO INCREASE AWARENESS AND DO BETTER IN FUTURE * As we can see in many of the commercials, individuals find themselves in an uncomfortable situation with a mouth full of dry or sticky food without a glass of milk. In print advertisements, celebrities are featured with the signature white mustache and got milk? in text. For an international advertisement we must create an appeal in the advertisement and ads should also involve a family environment or give a sense of oneness so that international user should associate themselves with advertisement according to their culture. * Number of collaboration with other brands should be increased to cover the issue of low budgets. Got Milk name has itself a huge equity, CMPB can effectively use it to increase the awareness. * Social media is another cheap source of creating awareness. CMPB can also use YouTube channels, face book page and twitter to increase the awareness about milk consumption and spread the benefits of milk usage. * To increase brand recall brand persona should be created and endorsement through celebrities can be useful in communicating the awareness in advertising. * As it can be seen the increase in price results in the decline of sales. Therefore, pricing should be competitive considering the other competing beverage industries. Also the flavored milk which is sold through vending machine must be priced bearing in mind the other beverages sell through vending machines. * Currently the BTL activities are on the lower side while experiential marketing was not used to create the awareness. Experiential activities at school and college levels to create awareness and product trial for new dairy product would be useful.