Milk consumption increased considerably in 1968, the year Morning Glory milk hired the Kostelnik family to endorse its products in the Green Bay area.
We filmed the commercial more than 40 years ago, but I remember it vividly. My dad stood in our kitchen and read stiffly from a giant script taped on a refrigerator door. One cutaway featured my mom in a bouffant hairdo washing dishes with a dreamy look on her face. The second cutaway zoomed in on my brother Mike and me drinking big glasses of chocolate milk that left sloppy mustaches on our faces.
With no agent, my dad represented himself during fee negotiations and the two sides settled on a mutually satisfying agreement that thrilled my brother and me. We earned a year’s supply of Morning Glory Milk products, which is why I know that commercial generated a nice spike in the product. Our milk man delivered an order slip each week when he loaded up the metal box that sat outside our side door and Mike and I lobbied our mom hard each week for ice cream and chocolate milk.
These types of lucrative endorsement deals became pretty common among the Packer players after the team won the first Super Bowl in 1967.
Flattered to be asked and brand new to the national spotlight, some players like my dad endorsed products on a lark, with little or no concern about compensation. And, while these ads may not have offered any financial benefit, they do enrich the family archives.
Imagine our amusement when we recently uncovered a sauna ad featuring my dad and several of his teammates wearing nothing but towels and big smiles. Equally fascinating is a Norelco Comfort Shave print ad featuring the entire team wearing their game day uniforms.
Endorsement deals have become far more lucrative and negotiations for compensation much more intense.
Looking back, though, I really don’t think my dad made a bad deal for our family’s 30 seconds of fame. We spent an enjoyable year eating our way through the Morning Glory product line and watching that hilarious commercial shot in our very own kitchen.
Here is a link to a television commercial for Masterlock featuring the Packer defense:
Laura, I love your family history writings. SERIOUSLY, how hard have you investigated, researched or stumped at Morning Glory to find an archive of that commercial? It would be priceless to EVERYONE because of the time period.
You guys were ahead of your time — milk mustaches decades before the “Got Milk” ad campaign made them famous.