Someone recently showed me these amazing posters!! I CANNOT BELIEVE I didn't know these yet. They were made in 1986 to promote milk in The Netherlands, and the slogan is a play on the normal milk-slogan "Melk. De witte motor." (which means: Milk, the white engine - yeah, I know it sounds lame in English).
I seriously love these posters. I love their 50's sci-fi vibe, the awesome aliens, the colors and the backdrop (like one of those highschool photos!). But most of all I love the awkwardness of the "alien" slogan. As if, if aliens could speak, they would speak Dutch but would replace every M with Gn. And not even that, because that would turn "Melk" into "Gnelk". But somewhere, someone decided (I imagine this to be during a very serious business meeting) that the L needed to be replaced by an R as well. This just makes NO SENSE. And therefore I love it <3 And if you pronounce it it sounds so funny :')
Words: Mirjam, pictures: Frans Hettinga (PPGH/Moussault)
I first became aware of this campaign on Roosendaal railway station. I was returning from a 3 week holiday in Luxembourg. Roosendaal was where my feet first touched Dutch home soil again. And the first thing I saw was the lower left green alien above. With the caption below.
ReplyDeleteI vividly remember the moment. I fell to my knees and cried for joy. Oh, to come home to a country that produces wonders like this.
I kid you not.
Frans Hettinga will probably never know what he stirred in me. But I bow to the man.