Gone are the days when milk was solely used for cookies, cereal and an ingredient for cooking. At least that is the image that milk marketers are pushing in a new ad featuring Olympic athletes that continues the industry's push to portray the dairy beverage as a sports drink.

A new ad running online and on social shows Olympians including karate athlete Ariel Torres and multi-gold-winning cyclist Kristin Armstrong training inside a store's milk refrigerator. The scene captures candid reactions of ordinary shoppers as they open the fridge to not only find milk but athletes intensely training leading. The spot ends with the “Got Milk?” tagline.

The effort comes from the Milk Processor Education Program, or MilkPep, which is the marketing and education group funded by U.S. milk companies. MilkPep is a sponsor of TeamUSA for the Tokyo Olympics.

The agency behind the campaign is Gale, the MDC-owned creative media consultancy that won the account earlier this year. The video was directed by the Malloy Brothers.

Geoff Edwards, executive creative director at Gale, says: “The campaign for milk is reconsideration. The old campaign was about deprivation, what would happen if you didn’t have milk. That was the campaign that ran for decades. With the new campaign what we're doing is we're introducing the idea of what happens when you do have milk.”

The new film continues the "You're gonna need milk for that" message introduced in an earlier ad which positioned milk as a sports drink and depicted a climber scaling a billboard and building in Kansas City. By showcasing Olympic athletes, the new ad drives the point home even further. 

“You can try water if you want, you can try some of the sports beverages, but to perform at your very best you’re going to need milk," Edwards says. 

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CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that MilkPep was not an Olympics sponsor.