Nextmilk is a plant-based blend of oat and coconut milks that have been meticulously crafted to have the same taste and texture as dairy. After lengthy R&D (and quite a few legal conversations), Silk had given Nextmilk a claim that almost sounded too good to be true: ‘Made from plants, tastes like milk.’

Our job was to raise awareness and drive trial of Nextmilk by highlighting the groundbreaking taste of a plant-based, 'tastes like dairy' milk with a campaign that also delivered outsized results relative to the media investment.

We refreshed one of the most iconic dairy milk campaigns into something relevant for 2023— turning the dairy milk mustache into a plant-based “Silk‘stache.” We recruited the children of celebrities from the original campaign to be featured in ours, updated the still portraits with motion, and brought the campaign to life on TikTok—allowing everyone to wear a digital version of the Silk‘stache.

By refreshing the campaign in the creative vernacular of Gen Z, and assimilating their modes of reinterpretation, we opened the door, industry-wide, to a broad reassessment of what a “new idea” truly is.

We made a strategic choice to court a new generation of milk drinkers, a generation more open to plant-based milk alternatives. And to do it, we learned from Gen Z’s own playbook: their belief that creativity is iterative and infinitely remixable. To them, nothing is sacred: every original idea can be reinterpreted to become something new. So for us, nothing was sacred, not even the memorable milk mustache or its equally nostalgic advertising campaign.

We took an iconic milk campaign from the 90’s and we made it our own. That’s how a plant-based milk became the milk of the next generation.

Using the original campaign’s still portraiture as our creative springboard, we rebuilt and recontextualized its components for a younger audience. Instead of TV, we prioritized digital motion assets for OOH, social media, and media partnerships.

Our dynamic, moving portraits of Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, Ella Bleu Travolta, Sailor Brinkley Cook, Myles O’Neal and the rest of the O’Neal family came to life at tremendous scale in massive out-of-home placements in high-traffic areas of NYC, LA, and Las Vegas, incorporating more contemporary, sculptural posing and wardrobe. Additionally, humorous late-night TV integration with Jimmy Kimmel, and bespoke celebrity social amplification on TikTok—including a Silk‘Stache filter for digital lips— further reinforced that our next-generation celebrities had a next-generation take on what this classic dairy milk campaign should be in 2023.

Boldly challenging dairy by making their iconic campaign our own caught people’s attention, but who we chose helped to strike a cultural nerve. This helped achieve the goal of awareness by making big noise in culture.

Raising awareness means spreading the good word, and this campaign did just that. Thus far it has generated more than 5.4 billion impressions to date, including more than 181 million impressions and 552K engagements so far on social media.

The first 48 hours of the launch alone garnered 208 pieces of earned media coverage across trades, TV coverage, unpaid celebrity advocates, the news, and even press in the UK. The swell of interest and attention was beyond anything the clients could have imagined and has set a new benchmark for the organization for creative excellence.