Case Study: Beef and Milk Industry Branding Case Studies
Beef - It's What's For Dinner
Beef branding sets to distinguish beef from other protein sources, such as chicken or pork. The 1985 Beef Act, passed by Congress, was designed to promote the beef industry. The Texas Beef Council spearheaded a branding campaign that included the now-famous slogan, "Beef: It's What's For Dinner" and financed it with a $1fee per head of beef cattle. This campaign's goal was to address the slump during the 1980's within the beef industry.
A commodity is a good with very little differentiation and is typically used as an input of production. Beef is an example of a commodity. Thus individual ranchers' marketing expenditures tended to have a poor return. By financing the branding campaign by spreading the cost of across the entire industry, every actor in the marketplace would pay and benefit from the increased effectiveness. This strategy would minimize ranchers' free-riding on other ranchers' marketing efforts.
The beef branding campaign had more than the catchy "It's What's For Dinner," tagline. It also effectively utilized sound within the branding campaign. Aaron Copland, an American composer, had originally written "Hoe Down" for the ballet Rodeo in 1942. Now, many people associate the distinctive melody with "Beef: It's What's For Dinner." The ads for beef focused on ease of preparation and nutrition benefits. The ads typically displayed a family preparing or sitting down to a meal described by Sam Elliot along with the preparation and cooking time for the meal. The estimated prep and cooking times were typically quite short. These ads also promoted lean beef. All the ads displayed everyday Americans enjoying beef.
Got Milk? It Does A Body Good
The milk industry has undergone several branding and rebranding campaigns as it sought to carve its own brand identity. In the past, milk ads used the tag line, "It Does A Body Good," to emphasize the health benefits of milk.
The next generation of milk ads started with the "got milk?" campaign. The first "got milk?" ad was a television spot in which a fellow with a shrine to the Alexander Hamilton - Aaron Burr duel hears a radio promotion asking, "who killed Alexander Hamilton?" He phones into the contest, gets through, and tries to answer "Aaron Burr," but his mouth is full of sticky peanut butter. Because he's out of milk to wash down the peanut butter, his answer is completely intelligible. As he screams in frustration from losing out on the large monetary prize, the words: "got milk?" flash on the screen.
Milk print ads briefly went to the "where's your mustache?" tagline, but that was dropped in favor of the more memorable "got milk?" tagline. These ads combined the memorable phrase with milk mustachioed celebrities, athletes, and other notables.
The branding of milk emphasizes the health benefits that result from milk consumption. Among the many benefits milk provides are the multiple essential nutrients to promote strong bones and shiny, healthy hair. Awareness of the "got milk?" branding campaign rates over 90% nationally, making it a highly successful brand.
Both the beef and milk industry have effectively used branding to increase awareness of both commodities. Thus, both industries have shown that branding is not for people, products, or organizations alone.