Got Milk?

CASE SUMMARY

The “got milk?” campaign was born of necessity because there had been a steady decline in milk consumption. To reverse this situation, the milk processors established the CMPB to fund advertising and public relations programs with the ultimate goal of increasing milk sales and consumption. The CMPB realized that several factors were influencing the milk consumption, such as: the proliferation of other beverages the lack of portability, the lack of flavor variety, not thirst quenching, the lack of consumer mind share and the shared nature of consumption. So, the CMPB developed a marketing strategy based in a “deprivation strategy” that had to satisfy three objectives: to change consumer behavior, to increase mind share and to halt sales decline. They obtained success for two years but then the milk sales stated declining again. Thus, the CMPB had to review their strategies to try to reverse this situation again.

QUESTIONS

1) What associations do consumers have for milk? What are the implications of these associations in terms of building brand equity for and increasing the consumption of milk?

The consumer’s experience with milk is versatile. Consumers tend to associate the milk consumption with other types of food including cereal, cookies, sandwiches, coffee, milkshakes, etc. The major implication is that the costumers just buy milk because another product not only because of the milk. So, milk is a complement, it is threat like a “secondary” product. People just consume it because they will consume another food. Besides, the milk’s consumption increase is directly connected with the consumption increase of another product.

2) Evaluate the CMPB marketing program now and back in the early 90s. What do you see as its strengths and weaknesses? What changes would you make?

In the early 90s, the CMPB marketing program had three objectives to their campaign: to change consumer behavior, to increase mind share and to halt sales...