The Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) have partnered with Bell Media’s Branded Content Studio, creative agency Broken Heart Love Affair and media agency Starcom for a three-part branded content series called Milk Masters to showcase the integral role dairy plays in Ontario’s culinary landscape.

All three episodes of the online series launched on November 6 and see chefs face off against one another to create dishes with dairy as a central ingredient. Judging each dish are three star Canadian chefs: Christine Cushing, Claudio Aprile and Craig Wong.

“Dairy Farmers of Ontario came up with the idea for a contest and approached Broken Heart Love Affair (BHLA) with the idea. They [BHLA] approached Starcom, who in turn came to us,” Laird White, senior manager of brand partnerships at Bell Media, tells MiC.

“Our branded entertainment team had a lot of good collaboration wth Starcom, BHLA, and the DFO to determine the best format and length of content,” White says, with Bell’s Branded Content Studio recommending three chefs and six competitors across three, 15-to-20-minute online episodes.

Outside of the messaging and branding within the digital series, White says awareness and engagement called for “a very robust distribution plan,” around a promotion (in collaboration with Starcom) pushing viewers to Milk Masters that started on November 6 and will run for four weeks across Bell Media’s TV, radio, digital, and social channels, along with editorial support from CTV.ca and CP24.

Bell Media’s primary audience of adults aged 25-to-54 is a key demographic for the DFO, White says, with the series featuring the DFO’s Milk brand and all things dairy throughout. 

Specifically, the Milk brand plays prominently in the introduction package of each episode, signage on set, contestant apron logos, and milk jugs used throughout the competition, as well as the DFO sponsoring the $25,000 prize that they will donate to their charity of choice on behalf of the winner. 

“The competitors talk about all dairy products as well,” White says. “Not just milk, but cream, yogurt, cheese. They [the Bell Media Content Studios team] did a really good job of finding contestants who love to cook and bake with dairy.”

While it was initially positioned as a one-off branded content opportunity, White says they were careful to package the content and overall offering as “Season one,” to keep the door open for additional episodes.

Corrections: This article was updated on Nov. 14 and 15. In the previous versions, the name of the series was incorrectly written as “Milk Matters” when in fact it is “Milk Masters” and was also updated to reflect that DFO approach Broken Heart Love Affair with the idea for the series, which in turn brought in Starcom.