fairlife, a company that represents Coca-Cola’s latest foray into the non-carbonated beverage aisle, has picked Doner as its creative and strategic agency of record.
The MDC Partners shop’s Detroit office will handle the business, which it won after a review.
“Doner’s values and innovative work makes them an ideal partner,” said fairlife CEO Steve Jones (formerly of Jones Soda). “They see the world the same way we do. And they’re fun to work with, which is important when you’re trying to improve the world.”
“We are excited to help fairlife reimagine the dairy category by getting consumers to rethink milk, a household staple,” added Doner president and CEO David DeMuth.
The Select Milk Producers organization entered into a partnership with Coca-Cola to produce and distribute this premium, “ultra-filtered” milk product back in 2012, but it didn’t hit shelves until last year. And fairlife ran up against by a bit of controversy before it even went on sale thanks to a campaign consisting of stock photo “pin-up models” clad only in (fake) milk. One model later said she didn’t know her image would be used in the campaign.
Illinois shop Condon & Root initially worked on the brand, which later went to CP+B if this story about Andrew Keller’s departure and this listing for VP Jeanne Nicastro are to be believed.
Today Crain’s Detroit reports that Coca-Cola ran the review with “several agencies” competing for the business and that Doner already has 10-15 staffers working on the account in its Southfield, MI office. We don’t currently have numbers for fairlife’s 2016 spend, so the size of the win isn’t clear. Doner will work with fairlife’s PR and media agencies, Alison + Partners and Starcom; its first campaign will launch in the spring of 2017.
Doner has been working with Coca-Cola in some context since winning a review way back in 1995. The fairlife brand’s most recent digital ads starring University of Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh were created by Onion Labs.