TV Experience: On Milk Commercials

With the current issue on the safety of milk products due to adulteration of melamine, I was relatively surprised that no milk company has assured consumers of their product's safety on television except for one milk company. My assumption is that they wanted to detach any association consumers may have on the issue that its sister company face in China. My two other assumptions would be that it is quite expensive to advertise on tv and brands confirmed safe by the local regulatory are responsible enough that they don't need to take advantage of the situation to the detriment of their competitors.

Amongst the all the milk commercials in the market, I was relatively intrigued and a little bit frustrated when I saw Lactum's recent advertisement on television. Sometimes I feel Lactum is reacting to their major competitor's efforts - primarily that of NIDO. 

NIDO launched in succession its t.v. commercial featuring celebrity endorsers starting about 3 years ago with Carmina, then Marjorie, and lastly with Ruffa. Lactum did not hesitate to follow suit with their celebrity campaign this year and got Carmina as well. Objective for this marketing move might be to insinuate to consumers that Lactum is a better brand than NIDO? I wonder if this is so or would it be otherwise. 

I guess NIDO grew tired a bit of featuring celebrity endorsers about late last year and featured non-celebrity moms one after the other. Lactum followed suit with a lot of celebrity (Jodie, Claudine and Carmina) and non-celebrity moms alike about early this year. Perhaps this enabled them to gain a quick win as I believe celebrity endorsement if used properly will do wonders for the product.

NIDO went back to celebrity moms this year featuring the megastar promoting NIDO FORTIFIED as her one milk for her kids. Lactum countered (again!) this proposition saying that there is no such thing as a one-sized milk that fits all your kids. I was relatively frustrated by this proposition and even questioned if there really is no such thing.  I remember in previous years, there were no 1+ 3+ or 6+ type of milks and parents were able to raise kids then with proper nutrition. Ask your parents, your boss or your president if they were given a milk brand with any + or number in linked to their name when they were young. I used to remember when we were still in our early elementary years, my siblings and I used to share one milk - we drank Magnolia Fresh Milk in the glass bottle and NIDO during our younger years. 

I don't mind various milk products trying to own a perception in the consumers' mind as it is a primary need to succeed in marketing. I hope though that they would stop focusing their efforts to degrade competition in order to succeed. 

I fervently wish someday that instead of countering each others efforts on various product proposition, milk companies will help each other out and start promoting milk drinking altogether in the country to help improve children's nutrition in the Philippines.