Milk Mustache Database

Ad text

MILK / What a surprise!

Don't listen to my advice on achy-breaky hearts, listen to the American Heart Association. They've been singing the praises of 1% and skim milk as a way to reduce fat in your diet. With all the same nutrients as whole milk, you're headed for the top of the charts.

Notes

MilkAdMan lists this in its main campaign series.

The Milk Mustache Book (1998, p. xv) says that toward the end of the first year the campaign began using men, while still aiming its health message at women, and that the first to run were Steve Young and Billy Ray Cyrus. When people were asked at the time to vote for their most popular milk mustache celebrity, Billy Ray won.

The Milk Mustache Book (1998, p. 30) gives the shoot as April 19, 1995, New York City. The crew had his latest CD playing to set the mood; the first thing he did on arriving was shout to turn it off. The book says “Achy Breaky Heart” made him a natural choice because milk had just been endorsed by the American Heart Association as part of a healthy diet, and that when people were asked at the time for their favorite milk mustache celebrity, he won easily.

Radio & Records of September 8, 1995 (p. 87, “Nashville This Week”) reported that Cyrus had become “the first male featured in the Milk Advisory Board’s popular ‘Milk, What A Surprise’ campaign” and that the ad would appear “in more than 40 major publications, including Newsweek, Time, In Style, Parade, Entertainment Weekly, and Country America, during September and October.” (R&R’s name for the sponsor; the ads were the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board’s.)