UNC KENAN FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL

SWETHA VASU

BRAND MANAGEMENT REPORT

GATORADE

Brand Audit
GATORADE: "Sports Fuel Company"
Introduction:
A University of Florida coachs (Florida Gators footballs coach) curiosity to
determine the reasons for the wilting of his players gave birth to the brand called
Gatorade in 1965. Soon after, Gatorade made its way into sports from the Orange
bowl to the Super Bowl- becoming the official drink of the NFL (a title valid even
today). In 1983, Gatorade was purchased by Quaker Oats which in turn was later
acquired by PepsiCo in 20011. In 2010, Gatorade became the 4th largest brand of
PepsiCo on basis of retail sales2.

Products3:
Gatorade boasts of a variety of sports products:

1 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=3929315&page=1

2
http://pepsico.com/annual10/downloads/PepsiCo_Annual_Report_2010_Full_Annual_Report.pd
f

3 http://www.gatorade.com/frequently_asked_questions/

Gatorade thirst
quencher
(relabled to
Gatorade G)
Gatorade
Performance
Series
Energy drink
(carbohydrate),Ener
gy Bars, Gatorade
Nutrition Shake
(protein)

Gatorade Frost

Gatorade Ice
(lighter flavored)
(relabled to
Gatorade Rain
later rebranded to
'No Excuses')

Gatorade Tiger
(with Tiger woods)
(relabled to Focus)

GIDS (Gatorade
In-Car Drinking
System)- in car
racing drink

Gatorade
Endurance
Formula

G2 (athletes and
yoga)

Gatorade AM
(relabled 'Shine
On')

Gatorade X factor
(relabled 'Be
Tough')

Gatorade Fierce
relabled Bring It'

Figure (a)

Rebranding:
Gatorade reported declining sales since 2007 that pushed the company to adopt
rebranding. The rebranding efforts -changing Gatorade to G -were not successful
over the 2009-2010 years for the company, pushing Gatorade to rethink its
branding efforts. In 2010, Pepsi invested $30m into a marketing campaign that saw
the launch of the G series.
The company also resorted to rebranding several products in its portfolio. It
relabeled many of its products as depicted in the figure a (above).
In Feb 2010, the company repositioned its product portfolio around the concept of
G-Series as follows4,5:

4 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/337710-gatorade-concurs-hydration-debuting-g-seriestechnology-at-super-bowl-xliv

5
https://web.archive.org/20101221172620/http://pepsico.com/Download/Gatorade_Company_
Fact_Sheet.pdf

Pre Game
fuels- Prime 01

During Game
fuels- Perform
02

Post workout
fuels- Recover
03

Figure (b)
G series- Pro, a brand extension was also another series introduced initially for
locker rooms of athletes that later was also introduced in stores in 2010. Gatorade
also introduced G natural made with natural ingredients and flavors, in addition to
the G series Fit.
Owing to rising concerns on health and the simultaneous popularity of noncarbonated drinks, Pepsi chose to embrace the trend and focused on noncarbonated drinks- unlike Coca Cola that continued to focus on carbonated drinks.
Under its CEO, Indra Nooyi, Pepsi started the Better for you portfolio- Gatorade
was crucial to this

Competitors:
Gatorade had a distinct first to market status. This brand is unanimously
recognized as the best known sports drink brand. Powerade is the biggest
competitor to Gatorade. Powerade is a Coca Cola product and the war between
these 2 brands started from the time when both tried to sign Michael Jordan to
promote their respective brands. Gatorade won this race to sign the basketball startaking a risk with signing Jordan, then 28, for a 10-year deal worth $13.5 million 6.
This was a successful deal for Gatorade especially in the international space where
the drink got its acceptance owing to Michael Jordans involvement. It is also
interesting to observe that Powerade is often positioned as the brand for the
underdog athletes (Power through tagline) 7while Gatorade focusses on the
aspirational emotions through portraying successful athletes. Gatorade also has
other competitors as listed in figure (c) below:

Powerade (Coca
Cola)

Bodyarmor

Lucozade(Suntory
Holdings) in UK

Vitamin water
Brands

Figure (c)
6 http://project6.wiki.usfca.edu/Drink+Wars

7 http://adage.com/article/news/watch-spot-2-powerade-launches-underdogcampaign/233082/

Other related
category products
such as Redbull
(energy drinks),
bottled water,
ready-to-drink tea,
coffee etc.

Brand Positioning:
Positioned as a Sports fuel Company- a tagline publicized in the videos of its
Canada YouTube Channel- GatoradeCanada, this brand has several sports related
products- from energy drinks to bars- and is actively innovating in the product
domain. A positioning statement for Gatorade might read as follows:
8,9,10,11

Gatorade also presents a brand personality that is best described by the following
words:

Excitement
Power
Spirited
Competence
Success
Energizing for athletes

For serious and success oriented athletes, Gatorade offers healthy, energizing, sweat induci

Customer & Target Market Analysis:

Gatorade was one of the first in the sports beverage segment. Positioned as an
electrolyte replacing oral rehydration drink, Gatorade gained a strong hold in the
athletic drink space early on. The figure below explains the customer segmentation
and analysis:

8 http://www.gatorade.com/company/heritage

9 http://thebranddevelopmentcompany.com/brand-positioning-statements-101/

10 http://marketrealist.com/2015/05/gatorades-position-sports-beverage-market/

11 http://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-of-gatorade/

Demographic

Psychographic

Geographic

Behavioristic

Young athletes- between 18-34

Male (predominantly)
Fans of successful athletes
Attitude: Success oriented, motivated
Lifestyle: High end- luxurious (although not well defined here);
active lifestyles
Mostly the USA
Presence in other countries too- e.g. Canada, France, United
Kingdom, Australia etc.
Pre, during, and post game (predominantly)
For general rehydration and energy

Figure (d)
The target market of Gatorade is a fairly homogenous segment in terms of the
energy needs, however, some heterogeneity exists between the needs of different
sports segments. This also explains Gatorades product development specifically for
car-racing Gatorade in Car drinking system (one that could withstand the 130degree temperature) in addition to its other product series.

Brand Equity Pyramid:

Resonance
Most popular sports drink in the USA,
Long term sponsorships, loyal
companion to an athlete
Judgents/ Feelings
Confidence, sports companion,
motivational

Performance/ Imagery
Energising Athlete's locker room drink,
Recovery drink, sweat it to success
Salience
Sports fuel drink- associated with
sports, electrolyte replenisher,
hydration therapy

Marketing Strategy:
In 2009, Gatorade learned its big lesson in Marketing. In order to overcome the
declining sales, Gatorade launched a What is G marketing campaign. This was
intended to focus on an image that appealed to an everyday audience. However,
this campaign led to a loss of 895.8 million gallons in unit sales during 2009 alone.
This rebranding created more confusion than clarity, leading to a huge loss, and lots
of negative publicity for the brand RIP Gatorade.
Since this fiasco, Gatorade has turned to interesting marketing techniques:

The launch of G series is a prominent milestone in the history of

advertisements for Gatorade. Conceptualized and promoted as pre-game,
during game and post-game fuels, it struck a chord with athletes in engaging
with them through all times in their lives. Exhibit A of appendix showcases
some of the advertisements used by the brand in promoting this series
Gatorade also promotes itself as an aspirational drink with successful players
in its advertisements- starting with Michael Jordan, to Tiger Woods
(controversial) to Messi. Exhibit B displays some of the aspirational print
messages used by Gatorade with these sporting stars
Gatorade also tried indirect messaging advertisements to establish its
superiority over other competitors such as vitamin water through
advertisements as showcased in Exhibit C
Gatorade has also positioned itself an innovation oriented sports drink- as is
evidenced from the latest gimmick- putting marketing ahead of the products
In many ways, one can say that Gatorade is doing a lot of things right- focused
branding (as healthy sports fuel), aspirational targeting (with scope for
improvement), and innovating. We shall review some ways in which Gatorade can
improve in the Brand Strategy section below:

Brand Strategy
1. Positioning:
a. Maintain positioning as a sports fuel
2. Targeting:
a. Strengthen image as a sports fuel in international markets through
localization in branding and advertisements. For example, in
international markets like India, cricket is a loved sport. Promote this
brand in these countries using sporting icons from regionally loved
sports such as Virat Kohli (cricketer)
b. Sponsor the Olympics to gain international audience- this will be an
expensive, yet a trustworthy way to enter into the unchartered, or
lowly penetrated international markets
c. Consider associations with extreme sports. Red bull is currently the
leader in this segment, but, this space presents scope for Gatorades
entry too. Gatorade should consider outflanking Red Bull in this
segment through creative advertisements and strong taglines such as
Live it up with Gatorade, Boost your adrenaline etc.

d. Penetrate the womens sports domain. Gatorades advertisements are

heavily men driven. Sponsor a womens championship sporting event
to begin this association
e. Consider expanding reach to other players in the sports domain such
as cheerleaders, umpires etc. However, make sure that the image of
the brand as a sports fuel is not diluted in the marketing to these
segments
f. Continue to improve targeting on High school athletes and the younger
population (18-26)
3. Brand Messaging
a. Gatorades YouTube channel is currently unorganized with several subchannels. Clean the YouTube channel organization, and structure it to
convey very clear messages at specific audience- for example, use
specific channels to convey language based ads- Gatorade Spanish, or
country based ads- Gatorade India etc.
b. For Instagram, Facebook etc. stick to a single classification- either
based on country, or on Language (our recommendation would be by
country)
c. Use consistent logos across the different channels- for example,
Gatorade twitter has a different logo while the same in Instagram is
different
d. Create an educational segment to help viewers learn more about how
and when to use Gatorade in the best way rather than restricting the
advertising to just the aspirations. This can however be intertwined
with advertisements that show visuals of when and how to use
Gatorade (something that Gatorade currently uses in Restorative fuel
based ads)

Conclusion:
Gatorade, powered by its early advantage has established itself well as a market
leader in the sports fuel segment. While it is consistent in its performance, and is
innovating in the field, it can make certain improvements to its branding strategy by
organizing and tactfully targeting its audience. It is in the right segment in terms of
consumers perception as a healthy drink too. So, our recommendation would be:
Keep innovating, keep growing, Keep Going Gatorade!

Appendix

Exhibit A: G Series advertisements

Exhibit B: Gatorade advertisement with sports icons

Exhibit C: Ads targeting Gatorades competitors