By Robert Goldrich

SAN FRANCISCO --

Occasionally over the years, Jeff Goodby, co-chairman/creative director of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GSP), San Francisco, has sat in the director’s chair for select projects. His latest such helming endeavor, the “Mootopia” commercials for the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB), reflects the strategic progression and creative adjustments needed to keep a campaign fresh and relevant, even one as successful and longstanding as that carrying the classic “Got Milk?” query.

Consider the Goodby-directed 1994 CMPB “Heaven” spot from GSP in which a self-absorbed man is run over by a truck, sending him to the afterlife. At first he appears to be in snacker’s heaven, replete with giant chocolate chip cookies. But when he opens the refrigerator to get some milk, carton after carton turns out to be empty. His ultimate just dessert is a living hell with a mouthful of cookies and no milk to wash it down.

Fast forward to today and the destination shifts from hell to Shangri-La. Nonetheless, the distinctly different spot environments are both marked by humorous irony. In the recently debuted “Gorgeous Hair,” we are thrust into a world where milk flows in abundance through streams and waterfalls–and as a result the inhabitants of this paradise are blessed with such attributes as lovely, shimmering, silky hair.  However the drawback to perfection strikes two young women. Each gal drinks from a long straw dipped in a milk lake. As they bask in the sunlight and luxuriate, they can only complain–about being blinded by the glare from one another’s shiny hair.

The other two TV spots in the campaign, which are slated to premiere in the coming months, are similarly themed. In “Equal Strength,” two strapping young men arm wrestle, with neither able to win. They are evenly matched because they are both infused with the strength that milk helps to provide. Finally one gent proposes, “Maybe we should settle this with a battle of wits.” An ensuing long pause ends with them resuming their arm wrestling match.

And in “Dentist,” we see a dentist nestled in the lush world of Mootopia, where all the inhabitants have perfect smiles. In this marketplace, business is bad as the dentist can’t even give away teeth cleaning services.

Strategic shift    While Goodby has directed several commercials in-between “Heaven” and those in the “Mootopia” campaign, the hellish and heavenly storylines serve as bookends that mark not only the changes in CMPB ad fare but also the continuing common bond of delicious comedy. Donning his creative hat, though, Goodby observed that the hell-to-heaven voyage only scratches the surface of the strategic route “Got Milk?” has taken.

“We’ve altered our strategy over the last few years,” related Goodby. “When we were dealing with sodas as competition, we could focus on what cookies are without milk like we did dating back to the ‘Aaron Burr’ commercial [directed by Michael Bay]. But now we’re dealing with sports drinks and healthier juices that can be good for you so we moved into the health benefits of milk–which is at the heart of the ‘Get the Glass” and ‘White Gold’ rocker campaigns we’ve done in recent years.”

Goodby noted, however, that the middle-aged adults on the Milk Processors Board didn’t relate to White Gold, a white spandex-clad rock ‘n roll star toting a milk-filled guitar. The target audience of teens certainly related to White Gold but this time around for the latest campaign Goodby said he wanted to “come up with a campaign–‘Mootopia’–that would cross over into what adults could also relate to.”

Goodby, who was creative director on “Mootopia,” gave much of the credit for the campaign engaging adults and teens alike to GSP art director Kevin Koller and copywriter Rus Chao. “They put together a great TV component with a great Internet experience,” said Goodby.   

The latter takes the form of a new website called visitmootopia.com where surfers can enjoy ‘Mootopia,” viewing the spots and playing various games to highlight milk benefits for strong muscles, hair and teeth. And launching on April 5 is a Facebook game whereby users will be able to experience the world of “Mootopia” first hand, while learning about milk’s healthy benefits. Web surfers can adopt their own Mootopian avatars by answering personality questions. Each avatar starts out as a toddler and grows up to adulthood, based on how engaged the user is to playing the game and to, of course, drinking milk.

Besides the hell/heaven shift, the “Got Milk?” campaign has moved from a shortage of milk (as in the iconic “Aaron Burr”) to an abundance of the white elixir.

As for why he chose to direct the “Mootopia” spots, Goodby simply explained, “I liked the concepts a lot. They called for a combination of acting and humor which I’m drawn to. You also have to make the world beautiful and with all the blue screen work and layers of shooting, I considered it a terrific learning experience.”

While it’s only a side gig to his ongoing creative duties, Goodby finds his own utopia in directing select projects. “Usually I’m the main client contact on the work so the client listens to me. The crew and the creatives listen to me. That’s a great position for a director to be in.”

His hope for the “Mootopia” campaign is that once it takes hold in California, other states will see the conceptual merits and pick it up, giving the spots national reach as has happened with past work in the “Got Milk?” series.

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