Former Olympians to Air Regional PSA During Closing Ceremonies Urging Athletes to Give Up Milk

Author: Lindsay Rittenhouse / Source: Adweek Online

Milk Life, a campaign from the MilkPEP board (which is funded by U.S. milk companies), made its Olympic debut in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, the board said the campaign would make a splash again—securing a partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee to produce content around the games though the 2020 Summer Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

What the board likely didn’t know was that a counter group comprised of former Olympians were devising a plan to drop a public service announcement during the closing ceremonies in PyeongChang urging their fellow athletes to drop milk and switch to a plant-based diet.

The below spot, part of a larger “Switch4Good” campaign, will air regionally in six markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., San Francisco and Dallas) during the start of the closing ceremony in PyeongChang and features stories from five former Olympians about the benefits they experienced when they switched to a vegan diet.

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The campaign is led by Dotsie Bausch, a silver medal-winning cyclist, and features Seba Johnson, the first black female skier in the Olympics and the youngest in her sport at the 1988 games; Kendrick Farris, a three-time Olympian and the only U.S. male weightlifter to qualify for the Rio games; Kara Lang, a member of the 2008 U.S. women’s Olympic soccer team; and Malachi Davis, a 2004 Olympic sprinter.

“I switched to a whole foods, plant-based diet about two and a half years before the 2012 Olympic games,” Bausch told Adweek. “I stood on the podium at 39 years old, the oldest competitor ever in my specific…

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