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29 September 2011

Lotta Bottle - 1982 - The Beginning Of The Famous Milk Ads

" Daily Mirror", November 3, 1983: an ad campaign launched in 1982 had given rise to a new catchphrase...



Three of the original 1982 "Gotta Lotta Bottle" TV ads, revealing far better than any written words the life, colour and brashness of the 1980s! Look out for the Eighties/New Man and Zara Nutley, the fearsome lady from Mind Your Language - "WELL!" Nice cold, ice cold milk - The daily pinta would never seem the same again...

Graham Thomas, formerly of Allen, Brady and Marsh, which produced the ads, wrote about the 1982 "Gotta Lotta Bottle" campaign a few years ago:

Everybody thought that natural goodness was very nice. They also thought that it was extraordinarily boring and old-fashioned - that is if they were thinking about it at all.

When we won Milk it was because we were able to convince the Milk clients that what milk needed was a complete change of personality. ABM transmuted natural goodness into "gotta lotta bottle."

Within a matter of weeks, "gotta lotta bottle" was part of the language and whilst today it may seem on the staid side, back in 1982 it was a revolution for milk.

"We wanted to get away from the middle class, worthy image that milk had and we went particularly for a very young boisterous approach. We quite literally broke all the rules" said Rod Allen, Executive Creative Director, at the time.

2 comments:

Carol McDermott said...

Hi :-), great to see the adverts again! I did filming as a mermaid at St Mary's lighthouse which was for this advert...they decided not to include it....must be lurking somewhere in the Archives, would love to see it!
carol

Richard Thomas said...

I loved coming across these adverts again too... having been one of the musicians and vocalists on the 'Lotta Bottle' music track. I spent many days in the studio with Rod Allen, (a lovely man) working on music for ABM campaigns for Weetabix, Ever Ready, Woolworth and various others. Happy days indeed.