Milk has a problem. Sales have been stagnant for over 20 years now, however data shows that certain subcategories are actually experiencing a growth in sales. In order to drive relevance and consumption, GALE was tasked with the mission of leading a reconsideration campaign for the beverage that’s as old as time.
Understanding who was buying milk and why led the GALE team to discover the opportunity to position milk as a performance beverage. “The data insight leads you to an audience. Understanding the audience leads you to a usage that leads you to a strategy. And that is at the core of how we think about reshaping the category, which is reshaping why milk is used,” explains GALE’s President and CEO Brad Simms.
Simms was speaking at the Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit alongside GALE Chief Brand and Experience Officer Winston Binch on the strategy behind some of their most successful recent campaigns that targeted various subcultures to reintroduce milk in a different way to consumers.
GALE came up with several different campaigns aimed at various audiences. One of GALE’s most recent high-profile campaigns, MilkPEP’s 26.2 Initiative, was a partnership with the New York City Marathon to sponsor every female-identifying athlete that joined its team with a matching donation to Girls on the Run, an organization dedicated to empowering young girls through running. “We want to create some value. And this is a genuine sponsorship,” shared Brad Simms on the idea behind the campaign.
Partnering with various NFL players for social media challenges to give fans the opportunity to win NFTs, GALE engaged consumers both in-store through the purchase of milk to enter the contest through scanning a QR code and showing proof of purchase, as well as on social media with NFL player JuJu Smith-Schuster debuting his new dance on TikTok for the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign.
Another example was at TwitchCon, where GALE and MilkPEP fostered a sponsorship of the event to increase awareness of milk's nutritional benefits among the gaming community and to encourage consumers to choose milk as their beverage of choice. “No one expected milk to show up there,” said Simms of the activation.
When approaching these types of campaigns, GALE’s integrated agency model allows them to be both creative and strategic. “If you really want to do something different in today's world, the connection of media and creativity with no space between them is how this happens,” explained Simms. “There's no distance between media, experiential, creative and activation.”
