Pop Did It Better

The missing children milk carton campaign was a 1980s public awareness effort in the United States that printed photos and basic details of missing kids on the sides of milk cartons. It aimed to leverage the everyday routine of buying and consuming milk to reach millions of households daily, long before the internet, social media, or modern alert systems existed.

The campaign began locally in Des Moines, Iowa, in September 1984. Anderson Erickson Dairy (and soon others like Prairie Farms) printed black and white photos and short bios of two missing newspaper carriers, Johnny Gosch (disappeared in 1982) and Eugene Martin (disappeared in August 1984), on half-gallon milk cartons. The idea reportedly stemmed from a suggestion involving local media or a relative at the dairy, with families agreeing to participate.