How athletes usurped chocolate milk from kids

This event report addresses how MilkPEP built brand equity for chocolate milk as a recovery drink, thus tapping a new usage occasion for a product long regarded as a treat for kids.

How athletes usurped chocolate milk from kids

Geoffrey PrecourtWarc

The Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) – a consortium of some 200 milk-processing companies across the US who together fund non-branded national promotional efforts – seems to have successfully turned the heritage of American youth culture on its head.

For decades, chocolate milk has been a treat for kids: the stuff of room-cleaning rewards, birthday-party sips and surreptitious trips to the refrigerator. But MilkPEP – without totally abandoning that rich legacy – has successfully repositioned the product to appeal to athletes as a post-exercise recuperative drink.

"Flavored milk has been...

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