What year did the “Got Milk” ad campaign launch?

Your morning cereal rests sadly in an empty bowl. You've just taken a massive bite of a peanut butter sandwich. The chocolate chip cookies are fresh from the oven. We've all been there – that moment of dairy desperation when the carton runs dry. But when exactly did advertising execs turn this universal trauma into advertising gold by just asking, "Got Milk"?

Reveal answer and learn more:

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The answer is: 1993

Here's something to cry over: Before 1993, milk was just... milk. The "Got Milk?" campaign, launched by the California Milk Processor Board in October 1993, transformed a basic beverage into a cultural phenomenon.

The campaign's first TV spot came from an unlikely source - Michael Bay (yes, that Michael Bay, before he started blowing up robots). The commercial's hero was a Hamilton history buff whose house was packed with memorabilia about the famous duel. When a radio contest called asking who shot Alexander Hamilton, he knew the answer was Aaron Burr. The $10,000 prize was in his grasp - until he realized his mouth was full of peanut butter and his milk carton was empty.

The simple question "Got Milk?" resonated so strongly that the National Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) paid to license the slogan for nationwide use. They kicked off their own "Milk Mustache" campaign, getting everyone from Britney Spears to Batman to rock those iconic white mustaches (fun fact: they were actually made with white paint and yogurt, not milk!).

Like milk itself, even great ad campaigns have an expiration date. After two decades of making us check our fridges and hundreds of millions in estimated additional sales, the nationwide campaign ended in January 2014, although it made a brief cameo during the covid pandemic.