“More than one in two young people have seen our videos”: how Dairy Products and YouTube stars became “friends for life”

Sunday at the Agricultural Show, it was possible to taste Tommes de Savoie made by... Youtuber Inoxtag (7.2 million fans), present for the occasion, on the Dairy Products stand. An unusual event which saw many young visitors flocking to it. Even ministers Marc Fesneau and Agnès Pannier-Runacher wanted to take a photo with the internet star. “A political recovery,” the young videographer tweeted the next day.

In just a few hours, he distributed his tommes, designed a few weeks earlier in partnership with the National Interprofessional Center for the Dairy Economy (CNIEL, better known as Dairy Products). A project detailed at length in a 25-minute video published on February 17 on the milk lobby's YouTube channel and viewed by more than 300,000 people. We see the YouTuber visiting a creamery in the company of a cheese maker, before getting his hands dirty.

This collaboration is not a coincidence, according to the label. “Inoxtag discovered Tomme de Savoie since he was preparing to climb Everest in the Alps. We simply asked him to discover how it is made,” says Adrien Dinh, marketing and influence strategy director for Les Produits Laitiers. At the beginning of February, the influencer was the star of another video around a “raclette hunt”.

Recruited in 2018 by Dairy Products, Adrien Dinh's mission is to improve the image, notoriety and attractiveness of professions in the sector as well as their production among 15-35 year olds. “When I arrived, there was a drop in the consumption of dairy products at breakfast by this target,” he notes. “Same with dinner: from now on, in French homes, we no longer necessarily eat the starter, main course and dessert, which is sometimes accompanied by cheese.” To adapt his communication, the marketing director takes inspiration from the United States. “We decided to address these young consumers directly on social networks, by telling them a story.”

It all starts on X (formerly Twitter). On his account, followed by 232,000 people, Dairy Products “clash” unusual trends submitted to them by users, “like eating Camembert with Nutella,” laughs Adrien Dinh. But everything accelerated in 2018, when an extract from an old video by YouTuber Mister V (6.31 million subscribers) resurfaced.

The latter imitates rappers by using the famous advertising jingle “Dairy products are our friends for life”. “We decide to reshare the extract, specifying that with more than 100,000 retweets, we will integrate the voice of Mister V in a future advertisement. In a few hours, we reached the objective,” the marketing director is still surprised. “It was even the most shared tweet in France in 2018, behind that of Kylian Mbappé on the World Cup victory.”

Some time later, a first video of Mister V with Dairy Products was broadcast on the lobby channel. The French YouTuber's sketch works very well and reaches 7 million views. It was the beginning of a collaboration that continues to this day. “With Dairy Products, there is a real creative freedom and understanding of the artist. And the community appreciates this content year after year,” reports Alexandra Monaury, Mister V’s agent for fourteen years.

While at the same period brands like Rinoshield (smartphone cases), Nord VPN and Hema established themselves as essential partners for YouTubers, Dairy Products opted for a positioning considered more original. “They don’t want to sell a product, but to convey a message. They therefore do not need an immediate return on investment, and they take the time to build a real relationship with the creators,” adds a spokesperson for the Webedia group, which represents YouTubers like Inoxtag.

It was also in 2018 that the song “1990 vs 2000 (clash of the generations)” was released on the Squeezie channel (18 million subscribers), then represented by Webedia. In the company of the video duo Mcfly and Carlito (also at Webedia at the time), the YouTubers place the label's famous jingle, dating from 1981, in the middle of the song.

In just a few years, Adrien Dinh’s strategy has borne fruit. “In 2020, a Kantar study estimated that more than one in two young people had seen our videos,” assures the marketing director. In the 15-35 year old age group, dairy products now have a positive rating of 8.3/10, with a gain “of 0.8 points thanks to the people exposed to this content”, he underlines.

The budget allocated to partnerships with influencers has increased considerably, from 300,000 euros in 2018 to 1.5 million for the year 2023. “This represents 3.8% of the overall communication budget for Dairy Products,” explains T. -he. “It must be said that collaborating with YouTubers allows us to create organic content and it is cheaper than television. While being more effective with young people.

Since last November, videos in partnership with YouTubers have been published only on the Dairy Products channel. Internet users can notably find streamers Billy and Amine visiting a farm, or Mister V and sportsman Ciryl Gane enjoying a breakfast made from dairy products. Most of these videos exceed a million views. “In a few months, we went from 50,000 subscribers to 90,000,” confirms Adrien Dinh.

And to continue to reach young people, Dairy Products co-financed the creation of a manga, entitled “Mukai”, and published in November 2022 by the publishing house Omaké Manga. With a budget of 350,000 euros, the first volume sold 15,000 copies. “The goal was to introduce people to the profession of dairy farmer through a character who takes over his father’s farm,” describes Adrien Dinh. The lobby presented volume 2 of this manga at the agricultural show with guest actress Brigitte Lecordier, known for being the French voice of the character Son Goku in the Dragon Ball cartoon.

But this communication is not to the taste of all these young Internet users. On X, many of them denounce these partnerships with their internet idols. “The YouTuber/rapper connection and dairy products make me too uncomfortable [...] and obviously Mister V and Alkpote don't have enough ecological awareness to refuse a big check,” says one of them.

Most denounce the promotion, to a young audience, of products deemed ultra-processed and which are not essential for a healthy diet. Still others assure that these same dairy products come from overproduction leading to animal abuse.

“The Mister V community is a loyal community, which has followed him for many years and knows his creative DNA perfectly,” retorts Mister V’s agent. “Even if the criticisms exist, however, we rigorously choose our partners who are in line with the values ​​of the artist.”

For his part, in an interview with Society magazine in January, Squeezie apologized for having collaborated with the dairy inter-professional association. “At the time, I made an operation for dairy products and today, I regret it to death. I was very young, I was not careful, I was not informed on the subject and when you think about it, I praised a lobby,” he explained.

A statement that surprised the label's marketing director. “Squeezie volunteered when we contacted Webedia and we didn’t force anything.” Adrien Dinh, however, recognizes the need “to do education to respond to the vagueness that can reign over the Dairy Products label,” he specifies. And already offers videos on the channel to present animal welfare or even organic dairy products.