MARKETING DAIRY
MILKPEP OFFERS STRATEGIC CAMPAIGNS TO INCREASE CONSUMPTION
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any of you have seen the advertising and media campaigns for Milk. Love What’s Real, a message that inspires audiences to “savor what’s real and what matters” in life’s smaller moments, or another, Built with Chocolate Milk, that features elite athletes spreading the message of how the science and nutrition behind chocolate milk can help adult exercisers be their best. These campaigns, along with a host of others, are created by the Milk Processor Education Program, or MilkPEP, to help the dairy industry promote consumer consumption of fluid milk in a highly competitive market. Are you utilizing the valuable resources that MilkPEP provides? The Washington, D.C.-based MilkPEP is funded by a 20 cent-per-hundredweight assessment on the nation’s fluid milk processors — which includes NDFA member brands that process more than 3 million pounds in a month — in an effort to increase fluid milk consumption. MilkPEP’s activities are led by a board of directors monitored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 30 • Northeast Dairy Foods Association, Inc.
Agricultural Marketing Service. According to MilkPEP’s 2018 annual report (the most recent data available), the total spent on advertising, promotion and education for fluid milk products and other expenses totaled an estimated $91.7 million. “MilkPEP builds best-of-class marketing and communication programs to win volume with each consumer target, including creating new and powerful consumption occasions to regain volume,” according to Melissa Malcolm-Cullison, director of national sales and field marketing, MilkPEP. Many will undoubtedly remember one of MilkPEP’s most iconic campaigns — the milk mustache — which featured celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Harrison Ford, as well as athletes like Venus and Serena Williams in “Got Milk?” ads. Today, Milk. Love What’s Real, Built with Chocolate Milk and Milk It! have updated that message and continue to promote fluid milk consumption at a time when it is declining. These three current “powerhouse” campaigns connect directly and authentically and are aimed at getting consumers to retail to buy milk regularly, according to Malcolm-Cullison, who
