You might remember your mom or grandmother giving you warm milk in order to go to sleep. Well, it appears that the California Milk Processor Board (CMPB) wants to bring back the usage of milk as a sleep aid with their brand new TV spots. The new ads are encouraging consumers to think of milk as the “‘bedtime drink’ for proper sleep and for positive, lasting dreams.”

“Milk has protein rich in tryptophan that can help improve sleep quality,” said Steve James, executive director of the CMPB. “As work and home life become more and more hectic, this new campaign aims to have consumers take a pause and establish a nighttime routine with milk. It is the real, simple choice for restful sleep.”

The tryptophan could help those who suffer from insomnia or other sleep-related issues finally get the rest they deserve. According to the National Center for Sleep Disordered Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), as much as 40 percent of the U.S. population suffers from insomnia, have difficulty staying and/or falling asleep. People who don’t have proper sleep not only suffer from sleepiness, but lack of attention span throughout the day and irritability.

The 30-second ads, “Goddess” and “Flight,” are produced by San Francisco-based advertising partner Goodby, Silverstein and Partners and directed by agency Chairman Jeff Goodby and will humorously reinforce how milk is the real and simple drink at bedtime to help with sleep quality. Here’s what you can expect:

“‘Goddess’ opens with a dream sequence set in a misty, opulent Grecian swimming pool at night. Suddenly a beautiful woman dressed in a white bathing suit appears and we hear her inner thoughts (in Italian) beckoning the dreamer to follow her into the pool. In the pool, the woman swims beautifully and gives the dreamer seductive looks with her eyes. Then just as the woman is about to surface from beneath the water, a tall, bald, man dressed in the woman’s bathing suit surfaces and says, ‘What? Don’t like interrupted dreams? There might just be a drink for that.’ Then the man walks away and swims into the pool. The spot cuts to salsa music playing over a shot of a glass of milk sitting in a moonlit kitchen, and ends with the ubiquitous tagline, ‘GOT MILK?’

The second spot, ’Flight,‘ opens with a man running through a park. Suddenly, the man realizes that he is gradually lifting off the ground and he miraculously finds himself in flight. He cruises through the clouds, over the landscape below. A woman dressed in 18th century garb picnics in the park, adding to the illusion of the possibilities and incongruities in dreams. She looks up in awe, while other couples stop to take notice of the grown man flying above them. The flying man soars through the air, eventually being overtaken by a gaggle of geese in a flying ‘V’ formation, at which point the dreamer hears someone say, ‘pssst.’ The goose to his right turns and speaks and says, ‘Hey, this dream could have gone on longer if you’d just had a certain drink before bed, but you didn’t, Sooo….’ We see the man instantly drop out of sight towards the earth, while the goose watches. Then the spot cuts to salsa music playing over a shot of a glass of milk in a moonlit kitchen, and ends with the ubiquitous tagline, ‘GOT MILK?’.”

Goodby said the ads’ focus on love and flying reflect some of the common themes in dreams. “Love fantasies and flying are two of the most common dreams people have,” said Goodby. “We wanted to bring these fantasies to life in a funny way to bring the message home: without the proper nighttime routine with milk, consumers may not be able to fully realize their dreams.”

Along with the ads, the CMPB will unveil digital bus shelters in San Francisco April 22. The shelters, which will make people yawn through a series of yawning images, a call to action will take place, inviting sleep people to call a “sleep hotline” at 1-855-MILK-ZZZ. Callers can choose from a number of options to help them go to sleep, including listening to the world’s most boring man reciting the number pi to hearing soothing chants or a lullaby.

Five different radio spots will also air on Pandora in the evening and after 8 p.m., online banners for the new campaign will appear on sites like Hulu, About.com and YouTube to remind people that “[i]t’s time for the bedtime drink.”

Check out the spots below the post. You can learn more at gotmilk.com.

Got Milk

By Monique Jones

Monique Jones blogs about race and culture in entertainment, particularly movies and television. You can read her articles at Racialicious, and her new site, COLOR . You can also listen to her new podcast, What would Monique Say.

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