MILO grows by helping kids grow through sports. With the belief that sports is life’s greatest teacher, the brand has been a catalyst for youth participation in sports for over 75yrs.

Yet participation in sports is in crisis—victim to parents unwilling to trade-off an academic focus that is seen as the only way to children’s success. Over the last 15yrs, there has been a steady drop in youth sports globally. In the US, a highly active country, only 23.9% of kids play sports.

MILO had to rescue sports, so we set out to change parents’ perception and educate on the lifelong values kids learn through athletics.

The campaign demonstrated that the values learned on courts & fields are equal to the lessons taught in classrooms. The campaign also encouraged families to sign up and give sports a shot.

The campaign was activated in Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Columbia.

The Alphabet of Values

Because parents are so focused on studies and academia, we introduced the sport field as a child’s second classroom, something parents better identify with.

We studied the most important values children learn while engaged in sports, whether recreational or competitive, individual or team. We then turned those values into an educational alphabet that young families identified with.

To bring the Alphabet of Values to life, we asked children to act out each value in their own way. We then added the graphic layer, which helped to bring out the meaning and spirit of the value. Yes, sport is a great teacher, but it’s also fun. We wanted to bring that element of fun to every letter, so we focused our effort on the individual value's lively personality.

The Alphabet of Values was built with an alphabet of artists and designers so to speak. To give each value their own unique personality we thought it only fitting to use an equally diverse set of creatives to tell the story.

To connect with today’s young parents and their children, we tapped into the worlds of gaming, street art, and social aesthetics. This pulled our sports message out of the usual 'physical/competitive/sweat’ space and into mainstream culture—giving us a graphic language that made it easier for us to talk about the important values learned through sports.

In our Alphabet of Values global toolkit, we encouraged the work to be big and seen at scale, with an emphasis on MILO's global grassroots programs.

MILO got mums back into a conversation about sport:

The campaign has not been out long, and is still being rolled out in other markets. However, In 12 weeks, MILO reached 78% of its target audience, and specifically 32 million mums. Engagement rates in Vietnam have a 2.9% CTR –– that’s ~6 times better than any previous MILO brand campaign.

MILO changed perceptions about sport:

Marketing Communication Objective Statements

- Sport teaches kids values for life: 91% (up by 31%)

- Sport is essential for my child’s development: 87% (up by 43%)

- Is a brand I feel close to: 69% (up by 4.9%)

- Is a brand I would include in my child’s lunchbox: 85% (up by 5%)

Within the first weeks of the campaign, there was a 113% increase in online registrations for MILO’s sports clinics across Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Africa, Colombia.

Source: Nestle Research, 2018-19