Lovely goes West

Food The phasing out of milk quotas, the pressure on expenditure and the reform of agricultural policy - the SMP need to prepare themselves. And send image bearer Lovely into a new round. "The primary goal is to produce a lot of milk at a good price and to promote the sale of milk and dairy products," is a guiding principle of the Swiss Milk Producers (SMP). Seen in this light, 2004 was a successful year: sales of fresh milk products, cheese and butter developed positively with a parallel rise in world market prices. However, the federal government is tightening the savings screw in the current and coming year in order to save CHF 90 million in allowances compared to last year. In addition, quotas are to be completely abolished in 2009, the "biggest current challenge", according to the SMP. In 2004, Swiss cows delivered over 3.2 million tons of milk (+1.2% compared to 2003), 14 percent of which was sold as drinking milk (+0.4%). Until a few years ago, innovations established in the out-of-home catering sector were only able to partially compensate for the long-lasting decline, and the organization uses basic marketing as the basis for promoting milk sales, which is intended to strengthen domestic products against imports and keep them present throughout the year. In 1992, the SMP included the virtuoso cow Lovely from Advico Young & Rubicam's Gockhausen advertising stable in its package of measures to safeguard producers' incomes in the face of increasingly powerful competition in the beverage market. In the twelve years that followed, she repeatedly demonstrated her technical superiority in witty commercials, posters and advertisements: among others, gladiators, sumo wrestlers, the lunar superstars USA and a surprise Olympian as a ski jumper. She has also repeatedly lived up to her role as a likeable and versatile milk ambassador on posters and advertisements. The image bearer has made it everywhere: Lovely National sticks her cow's mouth out in a funny and cheeky way in recipe brochures, as MMS and screensavers, in children's and textbooks and on muesli trays to the various segments - especially 15 to 39-year-olds. It has increasingly anchored and enhanced the health value and image of milk. The agency AY&R has now created two new commercials and two print/poster subjects for SMP. Lovely shows once again what she and milk are made of. The main commercial takes us to the Wild West, or more precisely, to a cowboy movie from the good old days. In it, Lovely stands next to a cowboy who skillfully twirls his revolver, dares to dance and shoots shots into the air with exuberance. But he should have left that alone: The top CinemaScope bar, hit by the bullets, smacks him full on the head. Lovely, cool as ever, swiftly heaves the bar back into place. But that's not all. In a short commercial, Lovely quickly traps an annoying fly between her horns. And in advertisements and on posters, Lovely demonstrates with her family what artistic feats she is capable of thanks to her strong bones.
The staggered deployment of the new work by CD Daniel Comte's team started a few days ago and is to be switched on again in a second wave at the end of the year.
The current main spot: Lovely coolly heaves the CinemaScope bar back into its rightful place, while the gunslinger lies slain on the ground.

Luca Aloisi