Gatorade A Marketing StrategyBy Chris Ruemenapp

New Media Driver’s LicenseThe 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?

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.

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

#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.

Social Media Strengths

Gatorade’s interactive website Makes it easily accessible to locate their Facebook 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.

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 #WinFromWIthin hashtag themselves, as will all 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. 

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 AdWords with 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. 

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. 

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.

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