MilkPEP’s Miranda Abney and Gale’s Alison Stelzer on rebranding milk for modern women

Despite U.S. government guidelines recommending that Americans consume two to three cups of dairy products daily, milk consumption in the U.S. – up until recently – has been in decline for decades.

The Milk Processor Education Program, or MilkPEP, was created in 1990 to increase dairy milk consumption — and benefit milk processors along the way. That includes a campaign that is likely to sound familiar. In 1995, the slogan “Got Milk?” was licensed by MilkPEP for use in its “milk mustache” campaign that featured celebrities such as Britney Spears, Serena and Venus Williams, not to mention fictional characters like SpongeBob SquarePants and Batman. It deployed the slogan “Where’s your mustache?”

Despite industry accolades and a positive impact on sales, milk was once again on the decline by the early 2020s. That’s when Miranda Abney, vice president of consumer marketing at MilkPEP, partnered with Alison Stelzer, business lead at business agency Gale, with a goal to get modern families to reconsider milk as the performance beverage it has always been.

In a recent discussion, they talked about their tactics so far, which include focusing on women by building a community of runners called Team Milk and launching a marathon called Every Woman’s Marathon.

“I have longed to talk to Mom as a woman and not solely on behalf of her kids,” Abney said. “And the last few years have been the first time we’ve done that as Milk[PEP], and it really has made a difference.”

These efforts have translated into increased sales and consumption. Now, they’re focused on building a community of young female gamers with an esports competition called The Milk Cup.

Alison Stelzer: What would you say makes our partnership special?

Miranda Abney: My team is so small and we depend on yours to accomplish our goals. I would describe our working partnership as an epic collaboration of sorts. What about you?

Stelzer: I love our epic collaboration. We really feel like we are an extension of your team. And the other thing I think is so special is we are both invested in achieving the goal together. Having that shared mission is helpful in the day-to-day to overcome challenges and just take some risks.

Abney: We are very direct with one another. We attack any issues head on and we talk constantly. So texting, emailing, phone calls — we’re always in communication. And when you’re out of the office, it is really weird because I miss talking to you all day.

I think the passion that you and your team bring to the milk business is the perfect match for us. And I think that’s part of why we’re making magic these days.

One of the highlights of our time together in the past four years was putting on this amazing event, Every Woman’s Marathon. And what was cool is we were both training to do this for the first time. And even though Alison is a much faster runner, we got to do two long runs together when we were out on the West Coast. And you can cover a lot of ground when you have a 12- or 14-mile run together.

Together, we’ve helped to reverse nearly 20 years of declining dairy milk sales. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Stelzer: There’s a lot of factors that go into what’s been happening in milk sales, but it isn’t coincidental that we’ve just started working together and we’re seeing this stemming of the decline.

We’ve been very smart about focusing on key audiences and listening to them and developing programs that can connect and put milk in more of a cultural setting. But we’ve done things that are big and things that you would never think that you would be able to do as part of a marketing campaign, like building a marathon. So that’s pretty astounding, and something I think made a difference in terms of achieving the business goals that we’ve set out to do.

Abney: As a marketer, it’s one of those personal challenges you come up against where things may feel a little older or staler because you’re spending so much time with it. But we all know consistency is how you impact consumers properly. And we’ve just been so committed to performance from day one of our working relationship. It’s always been about making milk into this performance drink for modern families. And we’ve done a great job of sticking to it. Exciting little things will come up and we say we have to stay focused and stick with what’s working.

What has been one of the most exciting parts of our four years working together?

Stelzer: I think when we started to focus on women, we really hit our stride. We know we want to put milk in culture, and we were looking for opportunities to do that. But when we hit on insights around how to support women, and [realized] that could be something that sets milk apart, that was where we found opportunities to make an impact and connect with an audience.

What do you think is working about our strategy to support women?

Abney: I can tell you I have longed to talk to Mom as a woman and not solely on behalf of her kids. And the last few years have been the first time we’ve done that as Milk[PEP], and it really has made a difference. I think moms are seeing and hearing us, and they recognize that we are truly supporting them in their efforts, whether it’s to run a marathon or just to perform everyday activities.

What do you think have been some good examples of using innovation in our outreach?

Stelzer: Team Milk, in particular, has been an innovative, relatable way to talk about milk with women. I think building that community is one of the best things we’ve done because we’ve seen the most engaged audience, superfans, and that’s a dream. And we’ve extended that into different audiences by listening to the consumers, and that’s been powerful.

Abney: Not only are we building this amazing community with Team Milk and women runners, but we’ve extended it to the gaming space with our youth audience. We are building this community through Discord and our Milk Cup platform that’s bringing female gamers together and empowering young women who have been overlooked in this space. So that feels good. I think this community piece and the way it extends across our marketing plan is really important. People are seeking community every day.

Stelzer: What’s your favorite piece of work that we’ve done?

Abney: The marathon is obviously a big one. I think I’m going to harken back a couple of years to 2023 when we did a very special piece of work that we called Wood Milk. It was a satirical piece and we knew it wasn’t going to resonate with everyone, but I don’t think we knew just how much attention this work would get. So that will always be a special memory for me.

After two decades of trying to move moms’ attitudes to a more positive place when it comes to milk, 2024 was a banner year. And we’ve even seen results for Q1 of 2025 and perceptions continue to improve. Importantly, that’s translating into increased consumption. And it all lines up with the increased sales that we saw at retail this past year.

Stelzer: The companion to that is the attitudes and the reaction we’ve seen to the actual work. It’s gratifying to see the response to people who have participated in our programs and the marathon — it was the best day of their life.

And The Milk Cup, that’s the ability to bring a space to women in gaming that they’ve never had before. A feeling of safety and community. People actually asking for this is pretty cool to see as something that you’ve built and responded to as a marketing campaign.

Abney: I’ll bring up Mom Com because it is the way we’ve been approaching our milk benefit messaging lately. We decided people need some levity at this point in time. And we’ve leaned into relatable comedy for moms so we can deliver milk’s messaging in a way that’s funny, but also meaningful and resonant. [We’re] setting up these very funny, but actually very real situations where moms really have to perform a certain way.

You have a big team and you do such a great job inspiring your team to greatness. How do you do that?

Stelzer: I have wonderful partners from the integrated teams that I work closely with to bring the thinking together. We are always making sure no one’s advancing an idea in a silo without getting input from the other groups. And it surprisingly does not slow down the work. It adds to it. By having great leads across the team, we’re able to move things forward in a way that gets the best thinking across the different groups.

If we were another Dynamic Duo in culture, who do you think would be most fun?

Abney: We talked about this together at lunch and we were saying we’re like Thelma and Louise.

Stelzer: A little bit in a PG sense, but it’s fun to push the boundaries. Being powerful women is what I would connect most with those two because people didn’t expect whatever they got from them and they epically collaborated as well. Until the very end. Right up to the edge. We’ll take it just up to the edge, but not over.