Love In The End Lacta

[Dorian Aldrege]

Lactathe brand that for ages has been a symbol of love in Greece, invited people to "embrace all flavors of love", in a campaign that became the number 1 trending topic on Social Media, sparked a hot public discussion about diversity and inclusion and despite the threats for a boycott, increased sales by 13.5%

At first, I was really sad. I felt like such a failure for not being able to feed my baby like mothers are supposed to be able to do. Fortunately, I have a great support system around me that encouraged and reminded me that I was doing my best and that the breast milk I was able to provide for Baker was doing him great and better than none. So I pressed on and continued to feed Baker with a combination of breast milk and formula for 6 months until he was eating solids. A few months in, I ended up pumping exclusively so I knew exactly how much I was making and how much he was getting. I also continued to pump every 3 hours even when he was sleeping a 12-hour stretch through the night. This kept up the demand so I was able to provide him with even more breast milk throughout the day. It worked, but boy was I glad when it came time to pack away the pump.

When Brandon returned to work, I got into a routine of pumping while the twins were drinking a bottle and then feeding them the breast milk I had just pumped at the next feeding. I would fix their bottles with a combination of breast milk and formula, get them all propped up in two Boppy pillows right in front of me, get myself set up with the hands-free pump, and then hold the bottles in their mouths while I pumped away. All this while keeping an eye on Baker, who was just 19 months when they were born. Absolute craziness looking back on it, but honestly it worked and everyone was healthy and happy. The twins learned to hold their bottles pretty early on which made for much smoother feedings and gave my arms a much welcomed break. We did this for almost 6 months before I packed away the pump once again.

Before the twins were born, I started hearing about lactation cookies. Eating cookies that could possibly increase my breast milk supply. Score! Sign me up! I even came up with a great Lactation Cookie recipe of my own.

And with an already low milk supply, I needed all the boost and calories I could get. I definitely made several additional ounces each day compared to what I made when Baker was a baby and could feel a difference in the fullness of my breasts.

So I went to town eating several avocados (hello guacamole & avocado toast!), handfuls of almonds & cashews, full fat milk, peanut butter on top of and in everything, eggs, and any other healthy fats that I could consume, almost to the point of making myself sick.

Before Brooklynn was even born, I knew I would be wanting lactation cookies on hand and thought it might be a little too ambitious to be baking cookies all the time while also trying to keep 4 kiddos alive. ?

Maegan is the author of her best-selling Beautiful Boards, Spectacular Spreads and Brilliant Bites cookbooks. She started blogging in 2012 and features hundreds of original recipes on The BakerMama. She truly enjoys sharing her easy, family-friendly recipes, creative meal ideas, food board creations, and entertaining spreads to encourage others to get in the kitchen and make something memorable for their loved ones to enjoy together. Learn More

For centuries, people have been writing love letters to express their deepest emotions. However, with the advent of smartphones and social media, the art of expressing love through written words has been reduced to mere chat abbreviations, emojis, and heart reactions. To bring back the lost art of expressing love through written words, Lacta, the chocolate brand synonymous with love in Greece, has launched a revolutionary new mobile web app called "AI Love You" that uses the power of artificial intelligence to create personalized love letters for users.

For years, popular Greek chocolate brand Lacta, working with OgilvyOne Worldwide in Athens, has embedded the notion of love into the brand using long-form stories that explore the deep connections people have with one another.

In past years, the brand has created a variety of content marketing efforts, including: a 17-part choose-your-own-adventure about a guy and a girl who meet at a bus stop and then reconnect two years later; a crowdsourced branded entertainment film crafted by inviting people to post love stories; a full-blown movie that tells the story of three couples who meet, face challenges and, in the end, find happiness; and a mobile app that allowed people to place images of love on chocolate bar wrappers.

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On 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Mondelez-owned chocolate brand Lacta released a four-minute film depicting a romantic relationship that turns abusive.

To find out more about why Lacta, a chocolate brand long-associated with romantic love, broached this serious issue, we spoke to Panos Sambrakos, chief creative officer of Ogilvy Greece, who told us that:

What we did this year came out of the cultural tension around the violence against women. In January, the #MeToo movement finally hit our shores, when a Greek Olympic athlete Sofia Bekatorou came out saying that she had been sexually assaulted during the 1998 Olympic Games by a member of the Greek sailing federation. This snowballed into many women coming out and telling their story. Then, during the lockdown, domestic violence increased around the world and the word 'femicide' suddenly became part of the vocabulary in all the articles and news reports, talking about how many women were killed by their partners during this year.

To broaden its target audience and its consumer base. For years, Lacta has been targeting 18- to 24-year-olds, young adults, mostly women, but men as well. But they have been trying to expand this with new product lines that appeal to different kinds of tastes, while also staying relevant to the youth.

Our goal was to become the talk of the town. We wanted everybody to talk about this campaign and appreciate Lacta for coming forward with this message, even if it was risky. This could not be pushed with media. Either people, society, news reporters would embrace it or not. So we timed it to come out four days before the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. The next day, it was the number one trending video on YouTube in Greece, and it stayed there for more than a week.

We wanted to be very truthful, so we studied the testimonies of perpetrators and what they have told their victims throughout the years. We worked and crafted the script out of all these interviews and then we co-operated with Diotima to really bullet-proof what we were saying, so it was not fiction, but based on real facts and real stages of manipulative behaviour.

Then we hired one of the best Greek directors currently, Argyris Papadimitropoulos, who made a film a few years ago called Suntan, which dealt with a similar issue, a possessive man that goes to the edge with his love affair. We felt confident that we knew what we were doing, we were not doing something just to shock people. We were doing this to alert people. And really, the best drama puts a mirror to society.

To always be consistent but be brave enough to talk about the things everybody is talking about, but no one dares to put them up on the big screen, on TV, on YouTube. Greek society has been talking about [domestic violence and femicide], but no one dared to make a campaign out of it. It was Lacta, a chocolate brand that did it. If you are consistent, you have a right to talk about the difficult things.

In 2023 Lacta wanted to create an activation that would enable people to express their affection, using the Lacta chocolate bars themselves as a token of love, with the aim of increasing sales at the same time.

For centuries, people have been writing love letters to express their deepest emotions. However, modern technology, with the advent of smartphones and social media, has reduced love to mere chat abbreviations, emojis, and heart reactions.

Lacta, the chocolate brand that is synonymous with love in Greece, decided to turn technology on its head, using it in a way that would help people rediscover the lost art of letter writing. That's why it used the most advanced technology of our times, Generative Artificial Intelligence, to help people compose imaginative love letters.

At the same time, the AI revolution was all the world was talking about. People were intrigued and fascinated by new and powerful AI tools, like ChatGPT, and wanted to try them. Recent studies had shown that 31% of all adults (36% of men and 26% of women) planned to, or were already using, AI to boost their profile on dating apps.

"AI Love You" was enthusiastically received. On Valentine's Day alone, more than 40,000 letters were written. TV shows showcased the app, and thousands of users posted their AI Love You letters online.

Lacta chocolate has forever been a symbol for love in Greece. It's sweet taste being compared to the feeling of falling in love. In a time of crisis though, Lacta wanted to remind Greeks of the importance of love as a priority in their lives. And thus urge them, to "Love, like there's no tomorrow".

A 42-minute online film was created, in 2 parts, that had Greeks being moved to tears. The film was seen by more than 1.8M viewers (25% of all Greek Internet users) and has had phenomenal response, with more than 250.000 likes, shares and tearful comments, from people saying how much the film shook them and made them reevaluate their priorities.

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