The following is an adapted version of an article originally published in Hungarian in Magyar Krónika.
The world-famous purple chocolate—Milka’s success is obviously due primarily to the quality of its chocolate, but a Hungarian advertising expert also played a major role in its success. This is the story of Sándor Szabó from Orosháza.
Once upon a time, three advertising experts visited the Milka factory in Lörrach to create new advertising plans based on what they saw there. They were astonished to see that everything in the factory was purple, from the workers’ clothes to the walls and the packaging paper. Sándor Szabó, who emigrated from Hungary after the 1956 Revolution, was most reminded of Újpesti Dózsa (today’s Újpest FC, the football team of the second oldest Hungarian sports club), where the stands were always covered in purple during the purple-and-white team’s games.
The small delegation was already on the train back to Düsseldorf when Szabó looked out the window and saw cows grazing. ‘Let it be a purple cow!’ he said, and the idea was so striking that the managers decided to go for it.
This is the origin story of Milka Chocolate’s world-famous purple cow. The idea first became a plan, then a highly acclaimed, successful advertising campaign…for which they needed to find a cow. The Hungarian graphic designer suggested entrusting the task to one of Stern’s photographers, who could take beautiful pictures—of women. The photographer accepted the assignment and travelled all over the Alps until he found the ideal model in the Simmental Valley. The animal was painted purple under strict veterinary supervision and then photographed. It has been Milka’s advertising cow ever since. Suchard, the manufacturer of Milka, was delighted to see the results, and it is no surprise that they entrusted the campaign to the Young&Rubicam agency, which was working with Szabó.
‘The photographer…travelled all over the Alps until he found the ideal model in the Simmental Valley’
All this happened in 1971. Sándor Szabó, then 37 years old, was born in Orosháza and had already dabbled in advertising as a child. Literally. Since he was so good at drawing, the local Turkish confectioner asked him to paint a 2×3-metre picture on the wall of his confectionery shop. A picture of a harem, the confectioner demanded. The little boy looked up what a harem was, painted the picture, and received a large portion of ice cream and a small amount of cash from his satisfied client.
Szabó grew up to become a set designer, working at the theatre in Szeged, then emigrated to England during the 1956 Revolution, where he studied advertising graphics and designed album covers. There he met his German wife, with whom he soon moved to Düsseldorf. Milka was not his first ‘sweet’ assignment; he had previously worked on the Merci campaign as well. In the 1980s he founded his own advertising agency and, after a while, began to visit Hungary regularly.
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