A glass of milk once sat on a sainted list for all Americans that included such things as baseball and Budweiser. The former, of course, became tainted with the performance-enhancing-drug era while the latter now boasts corporate headquarters in Belgium.
Milk is facing its own hurdles and the dairy industry is doing all it can to fight back. Last year MilkPEP (aka the US dairy industry’s Milk Processor Education Program) ended its longstanding “Got Milk?” campaign—known for its celeb-heavy milk mustaches—in a bid to address a deeper existential crisis.
Last year was also when the British Medical Journal published findings that challenged milk’s health claims with research indicating that “drinking lots of milk could lead to earlier deaths and higher incidents of fractures,” the Associated Press reports. While the British researchers “urged a cautious interpretation” of the study, that didn’t stop a slew of news organizations and anti-dairy bloggers brabbing onto the idea that “Milk Can Kill You!”
Now the dairy industry is fighting back in the most modern way it can—social media—with a campaign that was quickly ambushed by the forces it’s trying to fight.
Launched on Tuesday at the US Dairy Forum conference in Boca Raton, FL, the Milk Truthcampaign and its #milktruth and #getreal (as in “get the real milk” and, well, “get real”) social hashtags hopes to address the cow milk-haters and soy milk-lovers among us.
It’s aiming to get consumers back on the bottle/carton/jug (and away from substitutes such as soy or almond milk) with such tweets such as “Did you know milk is a top food source for Calcium, Vitamin D & Potassium?” from Organic Valley and “Milk is a vital part of a balance diet” from Milk Life.
Of course, consumers have been turning to non-dairy alternatives such as almond milk and soy milk for many years. PETA has been telling its members that no other species drinks milk after infancy and no other species drinks the milk of another species at all.
Animal lovers are also fighting back via social media, co-opting the Milk truth hashtags to point out the living conditions of dairy cows (and even drive to alternative sites such asgotmisery.com). The following is mild, by the way, compared to some of the gory images that can be seen by clicking on those hashtags:
The milk industry, beyond being frustrated at examples it says are the exception to the majority of its members’ standards and practices, is losing other milk drinkers because of lactose intolerance and certain dietary restrictions curbing milk intake.
All that despite the fact that the US Academy of Nutrition and Dietitics is “supporting the Get Real campaign and its push to underscore ‘the decades of research reinforcing low-fat milk as one of the most nutrient-rich beverages available,’” AP reports. The USDA also recommends that all adults consume three cups of dairy daily.
Generally, though, those aren’t the kinds of messages that move consumers, so MilkPEP is going after people where they spend a little too much of their day: on social media.
That’s why MilkPEP stopped producing its famed “Got Milk?” ads last year and turned its efforts to “Milk Life” in order to show how milk can benefit individuals in their daily lives.
The Milk Truth campaign is now churning across Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites with positive messaging about milk, such as “The Milk. The Whole Milk. Nothing But the Milk.”
Whatever way you pour it, MilkPEP is mad as hell and isn’t going to take it anymore.
“(W)e are seeing consumer confidence wane for a product that has so much to offer Americans—from protein, to other key nutrients, to convenience, value and great taste,” MilkPEP CEO Julia Kadison writes in a blog post on DairyFoods.com, while vowing to get aggressive as the campaign rolls out and gets knocked down.
“It’s time for us to say ‘enough!’ and be more aggressive against the anti-milk misinformation that impacts consumers’ purchasing decisions. This is essential for the health of the industry, and frankly, for the health of Americans.”
Source: BrandChannel
