MarketingVOX: A new campaign crafted by Lowe, New York will try to inject a new “emoticon” into teens’ text messaging vernacular in an effort to keep teens drinking milk, a habit they give up once easing into double digits, according to Ad Age.
:-{) is intended to represent the milk industry’s iconic milk mustache. Emoticons became popular in the early days of email, when most messages were text-based and did not allow for facial or vocal expressions to convey nuance.
MilkPEP is seeding the online graphic in a recent Vince Carter YouTube video. It also uses the sign for its MySpace email bulletins alerting milk-mustache fans about the next celebrity ad.
However, this alternative tactic is not without its hurdles. Media Professor at Penn State S. Shyam Sundar said the milk-mustache emoticon is not obvious and will require a lot of marketing dollars for youth to recognize it.
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02.27.07
