Abstract

The now-ubiquitous “Got Milk?” mustache campaign of the late twentieth century features a number of celebrity athlete endorsers in its print advertisements. As innovative as this campaign was, the use of athletes to promote dairy consumption among Americans was not a new marketing trend; the dairy industry has, in fact, sought out athlete endorsers and associations with sport and physical culture since the 1920s. In this paper, I examine the dairy industry’s use of celebrity male athletic endorsers in milk-drinking promotions of the first half of the twentieth century. Through an analysis of photographs, posters, and print advertisements, I argue that the dairy industry’s association with sport was intended to boost milk sales and ultimately shape a masculine discourse of health, fitness, and vitality around milk consumption.

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