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"The Milka Cow"

A live spray-painted purple cow in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris to promote Milka chocolate.

Milka is Kraft Foods' best-selling brand of milk chocolate. It is sold in bar form, in holiday shapes, and in a variety of specialty forms. It was created in 1901 in Switzerland, by chocolatier Philippe Suchard as his first milk chocolate variety.

The brand has a well-known symbol, the "Milka Cow", which is a lilac colored Simmental cow sporting a bell around her neck, usually shown in an Alpine meadow. The name is believed to be derived from combining Milch und Kakao (the German terms for milk and cocoa, its primary ingredients), but people of the time believed it to be tribute to Carl Russ-Suchard's admiration of Wagner interpretations of the singer Milka Trnina, famous soprano of the time^[1][2]. The chocolates are distinctively packaged in purple.

Today, the chocolate is produced at a number of locations, including Lörrach (Germany), Bludenz (Austria), Svoge (Bulgaria), Bratislava (Slovakia), Braşov (Romania), and Jankowice (Poland).

During the 1990s, Peter "Cool Man" Steiner became famous advertising Milka chocolate bars. The bearded septuagenarian portrayed a mountain dweller who warns an urbanite about having prejudices against people who live in the mountains: "Sie glauben wohl auch, dass wir hier oben etwas altmodisch sind. Aber Vorsicht: It's cool, man!" ("You probably also think that we're a little old-fashioned up here. But watch out: It's cool, man!"). Steiner's song It's cool man reached 4th place in the official Swiss charts. Meanwhile, the phrase "Why is the Milka cow lilac?" became synonymous with the product thanks to another advertising campaign.