Got Milk?

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Got Milk? is an American advertising campaign encouraging the purchase of cow's milk, which was created by the advertising agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners for the California Milk Processor Board in 1993 and later licensed for use by milk processors and dairy farmers. It has been running since October 1993. The campaign is credited with putting life back into milk sales nationwide after a 20-year slump.

1 History
2 List of endorsers
3 Fictional Characters depicted in Got Milk Ads
4 In popular culture
5 References
6 External links

[edit] History

The ads would typically feature people in various situations involving dry or sticky foods and treats such as peanut butter. The person then finds himself in an uncomfortable situation due to a full mouth and no milk to wash it down. At the end of the commercial the character would look sadly to the camera and boldly displayed would be the words, "Got Milk?".

The first Got Milk? ad, in October 1993, featured a hapless history buff (played by Sean Whalen) who receives a call to answer a radio station's $10,000 trivia question, "Who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel?" The man's apartment is shown to be a private museum to the duel, packed with artifacts. He answers question correctly, but because his mouth is full of peanut butter and he has no milk to wash it down, his answer is unintelligible. The ad, directed by Hollywood director Michael Bay, was at the top of the advertising industry's award circuit in 1994. In 2002, the ad was named one of the ten best commercials of all time by a USA Today poll, and was run again nationwide that same year. It has since been featured in numerous books on advertising and is being used in case studies at top-flight programs around the country.

In addition, Got Milk? billboards depicting cookies and sandwiches with a bite out of them (one billboard featured two Hostess chocolate cupcakes with the words Got Milk? written in icing) and cats with sad looks on their faces.

The slogan "got milk?" was licensed to the National Milk Processor Board (MilkPEP) in 1998 to use on their celebrity print ads, which since 1995, included celebrities from the fields of sports, media and entertainment, as well as fictional characters from TV and film such as The Simpsons and Batman, posing in print advertisements sporting a "milk moustache," employing the slogan, "Where's your mustache?"

According to the Got Milk? website, the campaign has over 90% awareness in the US and the tag line has been licensed to dairy boards across the US since 1995. Got Milk? is a powerful property and has been licensed on a range of consumer goods including Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels, baby and teen apparel, and kitchenware. The trademarked line has been widely parodied by groups championing a variety of causes. Many of these parodies use a lookalike rather than the actual persons used in the original Got Milk? ads.

In 2006, the Got Milk? campaign went after a new demographic with a series of Spanish-language ¿Toma Leche? (Do You Drink Milk?) ads, in which milk is touted as a "wonder tonic" with muscle and hair building qualities. [2]

[edit] List of endorsers

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[edit] Fictional Characters depicted in Got Milk Ads

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Batman (drawn version)
Superman (drawn version)
The Avengers (drawn version)
Blue from Blues Clues
Bratz Dolls (Yasmin, Cloe, Sasha and Jade)
Contortion Act from Cirque du Soleil
Cookie Monster from Sesame Street^[20]
Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly OddParents
Garfield
The Incredible Hulk (drawn version)
Kermit the Frog
Mario
Ronald McDonald
Jimmy Neutron
Pikachu
The Powerpuff Girls
The Trix Rabbit
Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons
SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star
Tommy, Chuckie, and Angelica from Rugrats
Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, Stu Pickles, and Chaz Finster from Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
Spider-Man (drawn version)
Spider-Girl (drawn version)

[edit] In popular culture

The campaign slogan has become an international snowclone, probably because of its simplicity and succinctness.

Friends character Ross Geller claims to have come up with the slogan, "Got milk?" None of his friends believe him and he can't prove his claim, concluding, "I should've written it down."

In the third segment of the third episode of Johnny Bravo, "Cookie Crisis", Johnny is being pestered by his neighbor Suzy to buy a million and one girl scout cookies. At the end of the episode he cracks and buys them, breaking the fourth wall as he turns to the camera and asks "Got milk?"

Scrubs character Dr. Todd Quinlan (aka The Todd) is seen wearing a shirt bearing the slogan "got milkers?".

The Family Guy episode Holy Crap features a parody version of a "Got Milk" ad. In the episode "The Thin White Line", Brian says the words "Got milk?" after snorting cocaine and looking at himself in the mirror and noticing traces of it on his nose. In the episode There's Something About Paulie, Big Fat Paulie spils milk into Peter's Pants, who replys "Guess I've got milk".

The episode Fear of a Bot Planet in the first series of Futurama also has a parody of the "Got Milk?" ad. Fry, Leela and Bender are sent on a delivery to a planet populated entirely by Human-hating robots, and after Bender is apparently captured by them for Human sympathising, Fry and Leela infiltrate the city in order to rescue him. As they walk through the streets they pass a bill-board with the popular "Got Milk?" slogan on it and underneath that the text "Then you are a human and must be killed".

A "Got Protoplasm?" advertising appears in the Futurama intro.

In the That's So Raven episode "Country Cousins - part 1", Raven comes out of the house in one of her flamboyant outfits, (in this case a cowgirl outfit with cow prints on) struts a pose and says "Got milk?".

An Asian pride slogan is Got rice?.

A French slogan is Got wee?

When Major League Baseball player Jason Giambi admitted to using performance-enhancing steroids, many New York fans displayed signs at games reading, "Got Juice?" in the same style as the Got Milk ads, a reference to the slang name for the drugs.

David Zucker film BASEketball has Matt Stone's character Doug Remer squirting Robert Vaughn's character Baxter Cain with milk from his nipple while asking "Got Milk?"

In an episode of "Weekenders", a spoof of the ad on the side of a bus reads "goat milk?" next to a picture of a goat.

In an episode of Charmed, "Brain Drain" a psyched out Paige says to Phoebe, who is eating a chocolate chip cookie, 'got milk? oooh, don't think so'.

In Warcraft 3, constantly clicking the bovine unit Tauren may cause the unit to eventually say "Got Milk?", as milks are mostly produced by bovine animals.