Got Milk?

A campaign built on deprivation: people caught in an uncomfortable situation with a full mouth and no milk to wash it down. Goodby Silverstein & Partners made it for the California Milk Processor Board, and the first spot, "Aaron Burr," directed by Michael Bay, aired nationwide on October 29, 1993. The joke then split in two. The TV spots kept finding new ways to strand people without milk, while national print ads put celebrities and fictional characters in milk mustaches. Those mustache ads were dropped in 2014, but the campaign carried on in California, and a two-word question had already become one of the best-known lines in American advertising.