got milk?: the book

"Isolation. Desperation. Torture. What strange origins for an advertising campaign and for a book." So begins this engrossing, witty, irreverent, and richly entertaining account of a milk promotion that started modestly but exploded into a national phenomenon. Jeff Manning, the creative genius behind Got Milk?, traces the Got Milk? campaign from its inception in a stuffy hotel room in Southern California to its spectacular emergence on television screens, billboards, magazines, buses, T-shirts, and virtually anywhere else the eye looked. The result: a book that's even more fun than the ads it celebrates.


Everyone has a favorite Got Milk? ad: The weird history buff, mouth crammed with peanut butter who loses $10,000 because he runs out of milk and therefore can't say "Aaron Burr." Or, the morning milk showdown between the father, the baby, and the cat when the dad realizes there's no milk left for his cereal. Or perhaps the priest, who having stuffed his face with devil's food cake, goes ballistic because the vending machine won't give up his milk.


got milk?: the book takes you behind the scenes on an eye-opening, laugh-out-loud journey through one of the greatest ad campaigns ever conceived. Although the success of the ads is undeniable—almost single-handedly they stemmed the decline of milk sales—the creative process that gave birth to them was not always pretty. Along the way, there were missteps, frustrating dead ends, and late nights fruitlessly searching for inspiration. But there was also the indescribable joy of an idea evolving, gradually crystallizing into something brilliant—as well as a little risky: building a multimillion-dollar campaign around the absence of the product. In other words, selling milk by taking it away.


Handsomely illustrated with the most memorable ads, including scripts of the funniest commercials, got milk?: the book takes you on an incredible ride through the strange world of modern advertising and inside the heads of some of the best marketing wizards in the world. It's a ride you won't forget.

Jeff Manning is the executive director of the California Milk Processor Board and the celebrated "godfather" of the Got Milk? campaign. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Berkeley, California.