Nepo Babies Wear Milk Mustaches in New Campaign for Plant-Based Brand Silk

There are a few ways to look at the new ads for plant-based drink brand Silk Nextmilk. First, they could be an homage to one of the most iconic and visually impactful campaigns in history, with an animal-free product tweak and a passel of celebrity offspring.

Or second: A bunch of nepo babies star in a blatant rip-off of the legendary and lauded milk mustache campaign.

Take your pick.

Marketers at Danone, the parent company of the Silk and So Delicious lines of plant-based milks, creamers, yogurt and frozen desserts, would admit only to “embracing the next generation of milk drinkers” and highlighting “the faces of the new plant-based generation.”

And yet, there’s the immediately recognizable creative hook: The thin, viscous white line above the top lips of Brooklyn Peltz Beckham, Sailor Brinkley Cook, Ella Bleu Travolta and Myles O’Neal, along with siblings Shareef, Me’Arah, Shaqir and Amirah.

There’s also the added, but unstated, callback to the earlier era. Famous parents David Beckham, Christie Brinkley, Kelly Preston Travolta and Shaquille O’Neal wore the original milk mustache.

Silk dropped ads as digital out-of-home placements in the “celebrity-rich environments” of Los Angeles, New York and Las Vegas, according to Olivia Sanchez, vice president of marketing for plant-based beverages at Danone North America. There will be a takeover on People.com.

The campaign will get a late-night shoutout on Jimmy Kimmel Live, per a segment with the host’s sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez, along with social and digital distribution via Facebook, TikTok and other platforms.

Clone wars

The work comes from Silk’s agency of record, the Brooklyn-based indie shop Orchard. Senior leaders there have roots that stretch back to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, originators of the “Got Milk?” tagline for the California Milk Processors Board, though they were reportedly not involved in that work.

“Got Milk?” was an instant hit with consumers, becoming a cultural touchstone and an industry-awards magnet. It quickly expanded into a national effort and intertwined with Bozell Worldwide’s then-nascent milk mustache imagery for the Milk Processor Education Program.

Starting in the mid-1990s and stretching into the 2010s, hundreds of Hollywood’s A-list donned the ‘stache. Supermodel Naomi Campbell and famed photographer Annie Leibovitz kicked off the effort, which eventually included Harrison Ford, Kermit the Frog, Taylor Swift, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Spike Lee, The Simpsons and other luminaries from sports, entertainment, pop culture and politics.

Got copycat?

There’s plenty of precedent in the advertising world of look-alike campaigns and concepts, though the Silk ads are more overt than most. Creatives at Orchard declined to discuss the new work with Adweek.

Silk aimed to “tap into the cultural fabric of America,” nod to nostalgia and “signal a changing of the guard in the beverage aisle,” Sanchez told Adweek. “We wanted to be sure everyone would talk about it, and it would drive the trial and awareness we’re looking for.”

Danone and rival Blue Diamond Growers lead the plant-based milk segment in the U.S., with the overall category reaching more than $3 billion in annual sales, per Statista. Though the popularity of faux meat has dipped recently, sales of milk substitutes made of nuts and grains have continued to increase, maintaining share as the largest category in the $7.4 billion plant-based food industry.

Silk, which ran a “Milk of the Land” campaign in 2021 to “demystify what plant-based is,” has recently revamped its packaging, Sanchez said. The new ads specifically target Gen Z, leaning into data that says 65% of the demo wants a more plant-forward diet and 84% say food choices part of their identity, per Sanchez.