Western Australia’s very own Brownes Dairy has won the business world’s equivalent of an Oscar after bringing back the morning milk man.
To be entirely correct, the Perth-based marketing team from Multiplier Media won the award, after the dairy company launched household deliveries during the peak of Perth’s COVID-19 pandemic.
Labelled ‘The return of the Milkos’ the campaign was a massive success in WA’s city corner.
The launch post on Facebook reached more than 600,000 people in two days.
About 10 per cent of Perth’s population accessed the Milko web portal on the first day.
The award was a Gold Stevie — an internationally recognised mark of great business and ideas.
Multiplier Media and Brownes Dairy received the recognition for their efforts keeping the West Australian community connected during the COVID-19 lockdown.
It’s not the only award going into Multiplier’s cabinet — the Milko campaign also won Social Idea of the Year at the Mumbrella Awards and was named “best COVID pivot” by the Australian Financial Review.
Even post-lockdown (in Perth at least) the delivery service retains 9000 subscribers, with an average delivery order of $25.
Delivery is free after a minimum spend of $10.
Brownes Dairy sales and marketing director Natalie Sarich-Dayton said the Milko service “struck a chord of nostalgia” among Perth residents.
“There’s also a lot of relief. Milk is one of those essential items that can cause stress in the household when you run out,” Ms Sarich-Dayton said.
Multiplier Media’s managing director Heidi Cuthbert worked on the campaign.
“The Multiplier team really enjoyed helping Brownes to spread the word about Milko, to promote the roll-out of the door-to-door milk service,” Ms Cuthbert said.
“The Brownes Milko is now on track to be a $1 million retailer in 2020.
“We have created the modern milko, a new revenue and marketing stream which is fully incremental to our existing business.”
The company is far from the first to switch to home deliveries, but it is unusual in the fact that specific brands rarely peel off and do their own deliveries separate from farmers’ markets and the supermarkets.
WA’s home-town pride in the company is visible in its success, and evident in the fact that State Premier Mark McGowan personally took part in the company’s recent launch of a WA-made cheddar cheese product.
The drivers will text a household when they are close by, and families will leave a laundry basket out the front of their house for the vendor to drop the ordered dairy products into.
This ad-hoc COVID-safe method has worked so well it's being continued indefinitely.
More than eight products can be ordered, including milk, yoghurt and juice.