1. Gatorade, “Mission Control” Case
Study
4/15/13

2. Repositioning the brand NEED TO
REDESIGN
PAGE
 Challenging year for Gatorade in 2009
as sales plummeted and brand lost it’s
competitive edge
 Issues with Brand:
 Legacy brand losing it’s vibrancy & position
on shelf
 Communication tactics were not relevant
and heavily reliant on broadcast media
 Negative publicity on health risks associated
with energy brands & use of high corn
fructose syrup
 Became an older iconic American brand
 Challenge became to redefine brand’s
market positioning
 Create a refreshed vibrant brand connecting
with today’s youth audiences

3. Overall Goal……………
 In launching a grand social media listening center, “Mission
Control” is born from a desire to take the world’s largest
sports brand into a participatory brand
Refresh, redesign & redefine
an iconic American brand
Maintain #1 Market Share & Shelf
Position

4. Redefine the target
• Focused target, concentrate
marketing dollars behind
• A18-24 Youth with sports &
• Original target focused on reaching athletic drive
more mass audiences A18-34 with a • Teens (12+) with a focus on up
heavy focus towards the male demo & coming athletes
• Heavily reliant on TV to broadly • Changing the target made a
cover audiences dramatic shift in their advertising mix
(combination of traditional & heavy
use of social media)

5. Social Media Listening
 Today more than ever, social media monitoring has become just
as important as the campaigns that run on social platforms
 Listening allows for brands to learn, engage, help & collaborate
with consumers
 How it works:
 Monitoring is performed on a keyword basis, Gatorade identified
relevant phrases & keywords and developed tools to arrange for
easier digestion & analysis
 Typically it’s a three phased approach, collection, processing &
analysis

6. What is “Mission Control”
 Designed a “war room” to
monitor, optimize & capture
real time activity regarding
relevant to the
brand, competitors, athletes
& sports related topics
 Room contains 7 massive
screens tracking data across
all social media outlets
 Leverages online conversations & allows Gatorade to react
faster & more proactively

7. Gatorade’s Wide Scale of Social Media
Footprint
55K 6.1MM Fans
Followers
127K Fans
12MM+ Views across
video’s
10MM+ Video
Views

8. “Win it From Within”
 Online & social media chatter revealed key topics of interest amongst
young athletes
Personal
Overall Journey Inspirations & Inner Hard Work &
struggles &
Wins & Losses Drive Performance
challenges
• Leveraging insights, launched the “Win From Within Campaign” preaching endurance,
hard work and celebrating the athlete willing to sweat a littler more
• Spot features • 6 page feature talking
Mass Media famous about how the win
athletes comes from inside, not
seeking just the apparel & gear
TV improvement
Social Media Online Media
•
Brand channel
featuring videos of
high profile players
• Ran contest encouraging young athletes talking about their • Gseries page & High
to share, post, tweet their personal Impact Digital Media to
drive, inspiration &
struggles/challenges & journeys drive awareness
perseverance

9. David Banner video –launch of
Gatorade has evolved campaign
 Write out this tactic -

10. Learnings & Applications