1. Gatorade
A Marketing Strategy
By Chris Ruemenapp
New Media Driver’s License
The History of
Greatness
-Founded in 1965 at the
University of Florida
-Is now the top sports
drink in the
world, serving athletes
everywhere and
replenishing both
electrolytes and
carbohydrates
-Gatorade: Is it in you?
2. Gatorade: A
Background
Products
G Series
G Natural
G-2 (Low Calorie)
Audience
Their brand reaches far and wide and specializes with an audience of
athletes of all ages, both males and females.
But their primary focus for this marketing strategy should be male and
female athletes and/or active individuals ages 16-25, the primary
consumers of their products and also heavy users of new media. With
a tighter marketing strategy, Gatorade can further improve their
presence on the market and make their brand shine world-wide.
3. Challenges and Goals
Challenges
Taking their current campaign “Win From Within” to new heights
Doing so in an interactive way with their audience
Advertising effectively in smaller markets
Sticking to proposed budget and timelines
Goals
Target smaller demographics
Find more creative and fun ways to engage target audience
Become a leader and enhance presence in social media, internet, and
mobile marketing
Use these tools to maintain a positive and exciting image and increase
sales
4. #WinningFromWithin
The over-arching theme
This is Gatorade’s current marketing campaign on their website, Facebook
and Twitter
To promote this effectively, they need to show how they Win From Within
themselves.
In essence this needs to become their personal brand. For people to buy
into the campaign and company, they need to buy into it themselves.
To sell both the campaign brand and the company brand, Gatorade will
implement a marketing strategy that incorporates social media, internet
marketing, and mobile marketing.
5. Social Media
Strengths
Gatorade’s interactive website
Makes it easily accessible to locate theirFacebook and Twitter pages
Social Media Mission Control 24 hours a day for top notch consumer interaction and
monitoring.
YouTube channel with up to date videos from sponsored athletes and the newest products
they have on the market.
#WinFromWithin – Hashtags only go so far! So how to rev it up?
The focus is that once you have everything for the outside, it's time to start thinking
about what you put on the inside. Sport is driven from the inside out, hence the need
for Gatorade in the athlete’s body. They need to utilize this campaign in a more fun
way.
A contest
Young athletes will be encouraged to share their winning from within story by posting
their best picture on Gatorade’s various social media platforms demonstrating how
Gatorade is actively helping them to win from within, incorporating with the picture the
hashtag #WinFromWithin.
Winners will be chosen from the Mission Control Center for creativity, since all of this
activity is monitored anyway, and prizes can range from at the top, lunch with Michael
Jordan or Peyton Manning, Gatorade’s top icons and athlete sponsors, or free
Gatorade for a year, to various discounts to their products.
6. Audience-Theme
Integration
Winners will be chosen from the Mission Control
Center for creativity, since all of this activity is
monitored anyway
Prizes can range from at the top, lunch with Michael
Jordan or Peyton Manning, Gatorade’s top icons and
athlete sponsors, or free Gatorade for a year, to various
discounts to their products.
Manning and Jordan will help publicize and market the
competition by personally tweeting and actively using
the #WinFromWIthinhashtag themselves, as willall of
Gatorade’s other prominent athletes.
Gatorade will create an album on their Facebook page
highlighting all of the fans’ photos.
Similarly, the aforementioned athletes will create their
own videos with the help of Gatorade highlighting their
Winning from Within story, one of which will be posted
each week and they will all be shown on the YouTube
channel.
7. Internet Marketing
Google AdWords
Many of the young people who drink Gatorade are student athletes are likewise on Facebook and
that would be an effective avenue to reach more users rather quickly.
Gatorade already is heavily sponsored with the NCAA and professional sports teams, hence their
association and sponsorship by premier athletes. This is a good way to get more people to buy
the product, naturally.
Invest in AdWordswith more teams specifically or more leagues that use their products like
NBA, NHL, MLB, NFL etc. so that links to their products and website are made available upon
Google searches for these various leagues and their respective teams.
Smaller Demographics
Keywords of specific races in specific cities so that whenever someone searches for these
events, an ad for Gatorade would come up.
Sponsor these events and have their logo on the cups used at the specific races. Also, big events
like The Super Bowl, the Final Four, World Series, Indy 500, Stanley Cup Finals, etc., could use
effective ads in their searches, as the athletes in these events all use Gatorade.
Effectiveness and Success Measurement
Google Analytics to track increased usage on Gatorade's homepage, their Facebook
page, increased number of likes, but also target select areas where sales are down. So target
teams, races, events, schools, etc. within those struggling areas especially and then track these
areas for a clear-cut measurement of effectiveness and sales improvement.
8. Mobile Marketing
A mobile application for smart phones
Coincides with the internet marketing strategy above.
Any event that is sponsored by Gatorade will be listed, and it
will be location based so if I am living in Detroit, the events
that are closest in proximity to me will show up first.
QR code Implementation
This code will be made visible on every one of their
products, including those sold in stores, cases, vending
machines, etc.
This way a consumer drinking Gatorade can easily go to their
website to learn more about them, find out more
information, and also have a faster, more direct route to their
social media platforms anytime, everywhere.
This will likewise create more traffic on the Gatorade
website, lead more people to hear about the #WinFromWithin
campaign and contest, and in the end enhance sales.
9. Budget
I propose a budget of $1.5 M.
25% will be devoted to Mission Control for monitoring
purposes
25% toward Google Adwords and Internet Marketing
Campaign (Including Facebook Ads)
15% toward Facebook and Twitter respectively, 10%
toward YouTube
10% toward App Development and QR code
management.
This would adequately allow for each of these areas to
thrive and also allow for the proper reimbursement of
those employees designated to each area of these
various projects.
10. Timeline
The #WinFromWithin social media campain will
go into full effect in August, when fall sports
begin and kids go back to school, giving the
summer months for effective preparation
GoogleAd words and Facebook ads will begin
immediately, as will the use of the QR code
Analytics and Effectiveness Measurements will
occur throughout the campaign and full
evaluations will occur after 1 year