Alberta Milk has chosen Venture Play as its new creative agency of record, with a particular focus on making milk and dairy relevant for young Albertans.
Previously known as Venture Communications, Venture Play is part of Arlene Dickinson’s Venturepark, a multi-unit company focused on building consumer brands in the food and health sectors.
The mandate for Venture Play is expansive: Strategy, media (planning and buying), creative, public relations, social media and experiential. Alberta Milk’s marketing and communications manager Karlee Conway said that the organization had been working with multiple agencies, and wanted one agency capable of handling each of the various disciplines.
“We wanted this really holistic approach to our marketing,” she explained. “We just wanted to streamline things; I think it’s more efficient.”
Because the scope of work is so wide, there wasn’t a large list of agencies able to contend for the business, said Conway. However, Alberta Milk did consider a “handful” of Alberta agencies before selecting Venture following a two-month review.
Alberta Milk had done some advertising in the past few years, but was more focused on relationship marketing. The plan for Venture Play, said Conway, is to bring back some high-impact advertising campaigns.
“We are looking for those big campaigns we hope Venture will be able to provide that really creative strategic element for” she said. “We have a very specific audience in mind, and we have different strategies we feel will be able to meet that audience. It’s not necessarily going to be this massive flashy thing. It’s going to be very strategic.”
One of the expectations for Venture Play is to help Alberta Milk connect or reconnect with the growing number of consumers who have taken to dairy alternatives in recent years, as well as younger consumers who feel they’ve outgrown milk and dairy products.
“There are so many more alternatives to dairy than there have ever have been before,” said Conway. “We know that milk is sometimes seen as traditional, so I think it’s important that we help tell that story of how dairy can continue to change through different chapters of your life.”
Venture Play is already working on a new campaign it intends to launch later this fall. The new creative will highlight sustainable dairy farming practices and address evolving consumer behaviours. “Our work will focus on making dairy more relevant to a new generation of Albertans, establish a strong connection between consumers and producers, and ultimately change buying behaviour,” said Dickinson in a release.
“We worked on the milk business for eight years and we are thrilled to come full-circle with this opportunity to again be part of Alberta Milk’s future,” she said. “As an agency purpose-built to help brands rooted in the food and health sectors, we can think of no better fit than our two teams.”
