DFC wants to change millennial ideas about milk

In an attempt to change millennial thinking about dairy, the Dairy Farmers of Canada has just launched an advertising campaign that focuses on innovation at dairy farms across the country.

Specifically, the campaign shines a positive light on dairy farmers in three areas: treatment of animals, impact on the environment and the quality of the product.

In the TV ads, which will also run online, viewers see high-tech tractors, robots in barns and automated cow brushing machines. A narrator explains how dairy farming may have simple roots, but the industry has become more forward thinking as the world changed.

The campaign uses the tagline “Dairy farming forward” and connects the DFC blue cow logo to the different ways dairy farmers are innovating. The campaign includes outdoor and advertising, and social elements.





“Our new campaign is designed to highlight how we are continually embracing innovations on our farms to further the values we place on our environmentally and socially-responsible practices,” said Pamela Nalewajek, vice-president of marketing and strategic business development, in a release. DFC launched a different campaign in January, also with a stated goal of reaching more millennials, but with advertising that took a more humorous approach.

However, that campaign also generated some backlash over messaging that said milk produced in Canada had "zero growth hormones." When animal rights activists complained to Advertising Standards Canada that Canadian milk is produced with natural growth hormones, DFC pulled that ad. (Nalewajek joined DFC from Saputo in March.)

This new campaign, however, puts greater focus on the environment, sustainability, the well-being of animals and the high quality of the milk. According to DFC’s advertising agency DDB, these are topics that resonate with millennials and the campaign “brings these topics to life” by showing real dairy farmers.