Tuesday, October 13, 1998
Milk represents pinnacle of commercialism
BOOKS: Once-generic drink gets celebrity status with mustache
campaign
By Megan Dickerson
Daily Bruin Staff
In this decade’s canon of self-celebratory advertising
publishing, the indulgent granddaddy is the Absolut vodka ad
campaign, which molds the short-necked, frosted bottles into
corseted women or even the abstract "Absolut Picasso." But how very
American, how very fitting with Yankee ingenuity, that in 1994 an
even more-celebrated onslaught of propaganda lipped its way into
pop culture, purveying a staple of the solid, cow-dotted
heartland.
While it isn’t hard to press an already eager consumer to "Drink
your vodka," the campaign that sucked in celebrities and other
media darlings claimed the difficult challenge of giving a
glittering facade to what mothers press on their progeny from
birth: Drink your milk.
And now, folks, the dream is all in one place.
In one of the most audacious celebrations ever of the American
advertising machine, the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion
Board published this month a glossy, full-color, 153-page manifesto
on the wonder that is the Milk Mustache campaign. Sure, there was
(and is) a lot of hype about the one-page ads, which feature a
model, actor or other eye-catching creature, post-milk consumption.
But can the white stuff that lines the upper lips of the
rich-and-famous like an organic John Waters pencil mustache make
for an entire book, albeit a quirky coffee table one?
As self-indulgent and flashy as "The Milk Mustache Book" makes
itself, it spins a story that becomes a monument to commercial
creativity.
In 16 behind the scenes pages, author Jay Schulberg of Bozell
Worldwide, the ad-machine responsible for the campaign, takes the
reader from the beverage’s "30-year decline" to the point when
"Where’s your mustache?" became the board’s "rallying cry."
At first, Schulberg rebuked the whole celebrity-model idea,
calling it "the last refuge of tired brains." Consumers know in
their guts that celebrities who can afford to bathe in champagne
don’t use grocery-aisle products like Clairol hair dye or shop
Rite-Aid.
But milk? The generic calcium-builder is pretty hard to
escape.
And so, dozens of Annie Leibovitz photographs later, the milk
mustache entered the collective consciousness of the American
consumer.
"The Milk Mustache Book," like the campaign itself, tries to
enforce the idea that milk is good for you, whether you’re an
osteoporosis-prone woman, growing boy or perfectly normal human
being.
That, and the idea that celebrities are fun to look at.
For the inner-paparazzi in everyone, the milk ad Bible hands
over Conan O’Brien in pseudo-Leprechaun mode, Tyra Banks in a
T-shirt (and a string bikini), Dennis Rodman (in three shades of
hair), Bart and Lisa Simpson, and James Cameron.
While the milk players may not be jewels in everyone’s crown
(and the book includes only a fraction of the myriad celebrities
once featured), the stars definitely have target groups, those few
that wish for nothing else but a portrait of that-special-someone
after a hearty swig o’ milk.
The book, however self-touting of its own genius, successfully
takes glowing stars and injects them into an informative soup of
pop-culture references, creamed lips and cocktail party
conversation-starters (i.e., what music did Hanson ask to listen at
their photo shoot?). And though the photos came to the page by way
of the discerning eye of "Rolling Stone’s" Leibovitz, "Milk," like
the ad industry itself, is well-packaged, vitamin-infused fluff.
Thankfully, the hefty ad accessory doesn’t take itself too
seriously.
And by the way, at the teeny-bopper Hanson’s fun-filled 1997
mustache shoot, the blonde-bombshell triple threat listened to
Elvis Presley. Yeah. "The Milk Mustache Book" covers the important
stuff.
Ballantine Books
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