AdMiration feature: Müller Light's “Get the Good Going”

For this week’s AdMiration feature, we researched Müller Light’s “Get the Good Going” ad. The ad is part of their campaign created to position itself as a simpler, healthier option based on consumers’ shift towards having a healthier lifestyle. 

Read on to get our 3-2-1 snapshot of the ad (3 facts, 2 learnings and 1 reflection) and learn how their ad was received based on our data.

The ad opens to a man sitting behind the counter at an antique shop eating some Müller Light yogurt. The scene expands to show a woman tending to the store, who notices what he’s having and says, “Oh, check you out being all healthy.” 

“Scandalous” by Mis-teeq starts playing as a montage of shots are shown of the man fabulously modeling sunglasses in a mirror, adding price tags to books with attitude, cleaning the window to the beat of the music, dancing with mannequins and more.  

The man is then shown snapping out of this day-dream as the same woman who’s now steaming an article of clothing says, “Ryan!” as a customer is trying to check out.  

The ad concludes with the Müller logo appearing over the scene and the words “Love every bit” with the voiceover: Müller Light, get the good going. 

3 facts

• The ad scores in the top 20% of all UK ads in potential to drive immediate sales and top 30% in potential to build brand equity in the long-term. 

• It engaged with the audience emotionally, making them laugh and evoking a feel-good factor throughout, enhanced by the choice of music. 

• People felt like it delivered a clear message about the brand but did so in a creative and engaging way that grabbed their attention. 

2 learnings

• It is often more impactful to connect with the audience delivering an implied message on product benefits and features by demonstrating what the consumption or usage experience feels like versus directly stating what the product delivers. 

• When trying to break category codes and drive growth in a segment or category seeing decline, it’s important to understand what is driving the decline in the first place and what can make your communication truly distinctive while still addressing the underlying issues causing underperformance. 

1 reflection

Are you using music intentionally in your advertising? Music choice can truly make or break an ad. It has a real impact on its tone and how you want consumers to ultimately feel while watching it. Whether you include music in your ad or not and the type of music you include at what point in the ad should be considered in the early stages of idea development as it has huge potential to positively impact performance. 

The integrated “Get the Good Going” campaign aims to relaunch the Müller Light brand in light of a cultural shift towards leading healthier lifestyles. The diet yogurt category has struggled over the last few years as trends in the category have evolved, focusing on “the good in” like healthy fats, high protein, live bacteria and probiotics versus “the bad out” like sugar free and fat free.

With the new campaign, which spans across TV, out of home, social, radio, retail in-store and press, Müller Light aims to position itself as a simple, healthier switch anyone can make in their day-to-day life. 

“This new campaign and the relaunch of Müller Light comes off the back of extensive consumer immersion that confirmed there is still a place for lighter yogurts that taste great, but importantly leave you feeling good when you make a healthier choice. Over the last two years the Müller brand has been on a transformation and Müller Light is the next in the portfolio to go live with new designs, recipe and comms idea,” said Health Brands Segment Lead at Müller, Vicky Morgan.

The ad spot intends to break category norms with a humorous take that exaggerates the feeling when you make that one uplifting healthier choice, no matter how small. 

The ad scores in the top 20% of all UK ads in potential to drive immediate sales (sales impact: 82) and in the top 30% in potential to drive brand equity and long-term sales (brand impact: 74).

Interestingly, Müller Light’s “Get the Good Going” scored in the top 10% of ads among men in terms of its sales impact score (91) and in the top 20% on the brand impact score (81). For women, the ad sat in the top 35% of ads tested in the UK on both sales impact (66) and brand impact (65). This is highly driven by the fact that on average, women in the UK tend to appraise ads more positively than men, generally scoring them higher across key metrics and driving a higher benchmark. 

Overall, the ad was seen as significantly more distinctive and unique compared to other UK ads (ad distinctiveness: 3.8 vs 3.6 norm) and did a great job of setting Müller Light apart from other brands (brand distinctiveness: 3.6 vs 3.5 norm). It was just a joy to watch, outperforming on the “enjoyment” metric compared to other UK ads (3.8 vs 3.6) and making people feel like others would talk about it or share it around online more so than usual (viral potential: 53 vs 47).

The ad was highly emotionally engaging, significantly outperforming the average UK ad in evoking positive emotions over neutral or negative ones (overall emotion: 50% vs 42% norm). Laughter was the emotion that peaked most throughout the ad, just as the creative agency intended it to, delivering the highest peak in the moment when the protagonist is seen cleaning the antiques shop window to the beat of the music while passersby can only hear the squeak of the squeegee. 

While predominantly intended to evoke laughter, the uplifting sense of eating something that is good for you and feeling healthy left consumers feeling great after watching it. While 14% responded with a laughter emoji (vs a UK norm of 7%) when asked how the ad made them feel overall, 24% responded with a love emoji, significantly outperforming the average UK ad scoring 19% on the same emotion. A further 42% of respondents reacted with a “like” emoji, solidifying the overall positive feel of the ad and intended message behind it. 

The music featured in the ad also had a crucial impact on its overall feel-good factor. It completely shaped the tone and brilliantly conveyed the feeling of the protagonist after tasting Müller Light. The ad scored significantly higher than the average UK ad on musical appeal (4.0 vs 3.7 norm) and when asked what viewers liked about it, 11% of responses spontaneously mentioned the music used. 

Beyond the music, people enjoyed the overall narrative and characters in the ad. The storyline was easy to follow, the switch between reality and daydreaming was seen as humorous and relatable and the store worker was highly likable. It was captivating, energetic and punchy. 

Here’s what people had to say about it:

• "I liked that it was funny and also a good story, but also showed that a healthy yogurt like Müller Light can taste great."

• "The song choice for background music, the fun nature of the advert, the length - wasn't too long or too short."

• "I liked the music. The ad was quite funny, especially when he was cleaning the window and trying on cool shades."

• "The humorous ways he is working in the shop, the music and it shows Müller Light is for everyone."

• "I liked the way the actor drifted into his own world after eating the yogurt."

• "I liked the way that the Müller Light boosts your confidence and makes you get up and go feeling healthy at the same time."

Importantly, it conveyed a clear message in a really creative way. When asked what the ad was trying to tell the audience, most viewers were able to connect the fact that Müller Light was trying to convey the product as both nutritious and delicious. Many played back the fact the ad was communicating the fact that the brand is a healthy, tasty and enjoyable product that can be part of a good lifestyle and is suitable for all types of people. 

Moreover, the top attributes viewers felt were communicated about the brand by the ad all aligned to the message they were able to spontaneously take away. Almost half of the audience said the ad conveyed that Müller Light “is great tasting” and “is better for you” and 41% said it conveyed the brand “is for everyone.”

This ad from Müller Light succeeded in landing  a very clear brand message while highly entertaining the audience.

What did you think? Let us know by interacting with our coverage of the ad on LinkedIn.

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