Will the milk imitators please stand up?

There are plenty of them these days. And now, the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB)—creators of the original “Got Milk?” campaign and brand—has released a catchy and visually entertaining musical spot poking fun at them. The ad’s title and message are one: “Everyone Wants to Be Milk.”

The spot was created by agency Gallegos United—there’s a version for Hispanic audiences, too. The 45-second version is running on CMPB’s owned social and digital channels, with 30-, 15- and 6-second cutdowns for CTV as well as paid digital and social throughout California.

The agency used AI to help develop much of the animation around the various fantasy milks.

“As a creative agency, we often talk about pushing the boundaries to reach today's modern audiences—and we are so lucky to have a courageous partner in CMPB that allows us to try new things such as pulling AI into animation to bring this amazing world of unreal milks to life,” said Pepe Aguilar, executive creative director at Gallegos United. “Why is it that everyone wants to be called ‘milk’? Nothing really compares to the real thing.” 

The campaign will extend this fall to influencer and other executions, including an 8-bit digital game. It’s an evolution of the “Get Real. Got Milk?” campaign, created by Gallegos United, that launched last year in California. Gallegos has had the account since 2018.

The agency said the campaign has caused milk consumption in California to steadily increase—and that, for the first time in a decade, the state is outperforming the rest of the country in milk consumption so far in 2023.

The campaign follows a somewhat similar effort that launched in April from agency Gale and the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), a national group that also uses the “Got Milk?” branding. That effort featured Aubrey Plaza as co-founder of a fictional “Wood Milk” company.