Expanding a 40-year-old brand beyond its familiar surroundings is no easy feat, but it’s a task that Silcorp is approaching in a very light-hearted manner.

The company is taking a humorous approach to the introduction of its Becker’s Dairy brand into sister chains Mac’s and Mike Mart with a new campaign from Gee Jeffery & Partners, the agency Silcorp hired earlier this year.

The company’s big news is being heralded with a 12-week Ontario-only transit shelter and radio campaign.

Transit shelters in Toronto, Ottawa, Barrie and London are now sporting one of three cartoon cows over racy lines such as, ‘Making all that milk was hard’, ‘I haven’t seen that much grass since Woodstock’, and ‘We haven’t had this much excitement since farmer Bob forgot to warm his hands.’

The radio portion got underway at the beginning of the month.

Scott Findlay, vice-president of marketing and distribution for Toronto-based Silcorp Canada, says although the Becker’s brand is well known, it’s not understood by the general public to be in stores beyond Becker’s.

‘It’s a communications challenge to try and take Becker’s Dairy brand into a Mac’s store, and we wanted to do it with a bit of humor and fun, and not take ourselves too seriously.’

He says while the brand is going up against the big dairies and there’s been a lot of rationalization in that industry over the past year, Silcorp is confident that controlling the points of distribution on the retail side gives the company an edge in the marketplace.

Silcorp purchased the convenience store and dairy assets of The Becker Milk Company last November, giving it ­ when added to Mac’s and Mike Mart operations ­around 1,000 stores across Canada, including 700 in Ontario alone.

The extension of the Becker’s Dairy brand into the Mac’s and Mike Mart locations is the first of many innovations in store for Canada’s largest convenience store chain.

Findlay says the retail environment has changed. It’s not unusual now for regular stores to offer longer hours of operation, cannibalizing the former ‘convenience’ of convenience stores.

He says Silcorp is meeting this challenge with its three-year Store 2000 plan, a renovation program already underway in Western Canada which will change the stores’ appearances and layout.

Findlay says the idea is not only to alter the color schemes and lighting of each store but to change the shopper’s demographic profile.

This will entail the introduction of fresh foods and daily-delivered products from local vendors in order to attract a broader, more mature audience, he says.

Also on the menu are more branded food services such as Subway and Pizza Hut, which are already in a number of stores, as well as new branded coffee programs.

The offerings will be tailored to individual markets.

Findlay won’t reveal if the renovation will give all three of the store chains the same identifying colors and look. He d’es say that although the idea of merging identities is under review, for now the Becker’s, Mac’s and Mikes Mart names will be retained.