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Darren Rovell: First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon
Out in bookstores and online NOW. Published by AMACOM in August 2005.
Darren Rovell & David M. Carter: On the Ball: What You Can Learn About Business From America's Sports Leaders
Published in February 2003 by Financial Times Prentice Hall.
« December 2005 | Main | February 2006 »
As many of my blog readers know, Gatorade committed to opening a $140 million manufacturing plant in Wytheville, Va. The 900,000-square foot facility could open before the end of 2006. According to the Wytheville News, there was a job fair in town on Friday to help fill the 250 production jobs at the factory and 50 managerial roles. The paper says that rumors are that employees will be paid $11 to $12 per hour.
I'm sure many you saw the lead-up by Fox broadcaster Joe Buck towards the end of the Seattle Seahawks-Carolina Panthers game. As they went to the final in-game commercial, Buck said something like "No Gatorade for Mike Holmgren." But, for some reason, as reader Sean Smith points out, it didn't happen and Buck had to basically right himself when the game ended by telling the audience that Holmgren in fact didn't get a Gatorade dousing. So what happened? It's not clear at this point. Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press says that Seahawks defensive end Grant Wistrom stopped it, but doesn't say why. Dave Boling of the News-Tribune suggests that Holmgren "advised staff members to get the buckets off the sidelines." I'm confused because Fox showed that there were players bringing a Gatorade bucket to Holmgren before the break. So they were still on the sidelines. But it appears, from the reports coming out of Seattle, that Holmgren did have something to do with it. "He's pretty slick about it," Tight end Jerramy Stevens said. "He has been on some championship teams, so he knows it's coming. He is about to dip out of that." Dip out of that? What does that mean? Did the Seahawks try to dunk him and Holmgren got out of the way? Bottom line, the talk of why it didn't happen is getting more exposure than if they did slam it with the drink.
Absolutely brilliant marketing strategy coming out of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, today. This company called DC Brands International has a new energy drink called Dickens Energy Cider. It sounds like an interesting concept. Most marketers challenged with trying to break into a crowded field would commission taste tests against their competitors or do a buy one get one free promotion. But the fact remains that taste tests are costly and it's harder than you think to get a consumer to buy one of an unknown product, even if they are getting the second one for free. Secondly, if you start out by doing buy one get one free, you are diluting your brand right off the bat. So what did the guys at DC Brands announce they are doing? Buy one of our competitors and we'll give you one of our Dickens Energy Ciders for free. Here's what that does: (1) People are buying the competition already, so you're really not asking people to think about it in the same way that they would have to if it were buy one get one free, (2) You are giving a consumer a personal taste taste, and (3) The consumer is getting the message that you so confident that Dickens Energy is better that you are giving it away for free. It is believed that this the first time something like this has ever been done. It is being called "Taste the Difference, Feel the Difference," and it is being rolled out in 16 Colorado convenience stores. Here's company president Dick Pearce in their news release: "It all stems from our believe that we do have the best tasting drink in the industry and that belief is echoed by the vast majority of people we have done side by side tastes with. So our idea was rather than attempt to staff and schedule people at hundreds of stores each month to perform traditional taste tests, we would simply give a free can to each customer that purchased our drink or any other energy drink in the store. You cannot get more targeted than that." I wonder what could have happened in the early 90s if POWERade tried this strategy instead of trying to engage in a price war with Gatorade.
Last week, loyal reader Greg DeSantis pointed out that he spotted 64-ounce bottles of Gatorade Rain with an "Easy To Hold" grip. While I doubt that Greg made this up, I had to go into the supermarket tonight and see this for myself. Sure enough, there they were -- 64 ounce bottles with a ring around the middle that is supposed to fit to your fingers. Gatorade normally does a lot of research before it brings out packaging to retail, but I'm curious as to where this idea came from. Grippable bottles make sense at 20 and perhaps 32 ounces, but 64 ounces? Who was their focus group -- Giants?
It has been a busy day for Gatorade as far as online marketing goes. Lewis Lazare of the Chicago Tribune is reporting that Element 79, Gatorade's ad firm, has acquired a Chicago interactive agency called Tractiv. The company will help Element 79 clients have integrated marketing, especially strengthening its online component. Gatorade had been using TribalDDB as their preferred company for online marketing communications. The company had just begun a relaunch of the Gatorade Web site, so one has to wonder whether buying Tractiv will lead to another relaunch of the site. It's hard to believe Gatorade would completely get rid of Tribal. This week, TribalDDB was named 2005 Interactive Agency of the Year by Adweek Magazine and Clickz News is reporting that the firm just hired Kevin Flatt away from Fallon to be the new interactive creative director.
During the course of researching for my book, "First in Thirst," I probably bought about $500 worth of Gatorade-related paraphenalia on eBay. Well, I've certainly slowed down. But every once in a while, there's an item that I see that I absolutely have to buy. Luckily, the people who sell these items don't know exactly what they have. I just purchased one of the very first Gatorade coolers ever made. The eBay ad said that it was a never-used vintage Gatorade cooler. So I sent the auction to Ed Ansel, who worked on Gatorade at Stokely-Van Camp in the late 60's. This is what Ed told me: "This is from 1967 or 1968. In order to get that Gatorade logo on the side, we would have a silk layout of the the green parts and one of the white parts and we took a drum full of ink and rolled it across the bucket. It was very hard to get the green Gatorade within the white arrow, so I bet we made 500 and threw out 500. This also was not the ideal cooler because in order to keep the Gatorade cold you had to hand fill the ice cubs in through that little spout. Eventually we did a deal with Igloo." I purchased the cooler for $9.95.
There is a very interesting article in BusinessWeek entitled, "Math Will Rock Your World." It's basically about this guy named Neal Goldman who has a startup called Inform Technologies. His company has a proprietary program that goes through articles and blog posts based on math. Later in the piece, the author talks about Umbria Communications, a firm that culls through articles and blog posts and provides marketers and brand managers with information. "Sometimes it uncovers trends researchers weren't even looking for. A recent search for Gatorade, for example, showed that large numbers of young men look to it as a cocktail mixer in hopes that the electrolytes in the sports drink will ease hangovers." Hmmm, wonder where they got this from? I've done a lot on this and it's certainly not a secret. The problem is, that this is not good information to the marketers at Gatorade because they would never market it to people drinking alcohol. Here's a list of some drinks I've never talked about, courtesy of VirtualBar.com:
Dextrose, a naturally occuring sugar, was found to be more performance-enhancing than Ribose, a widely-used sugar that is often found in fruits, according to a new study published in the current issue of the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine. During the study, performed by the Cleveland Clinic, 18 female rowers received supplemnt drinks with detrose, while 13 others received drinks with the same amount of ribose. They were observed in 2,000-meter rowing time trials over eight weeks. The dextrose-drinking women showed a median improvement of 15.2 seconds over eight weeks, while the ribose drinkers only improved by an average of 5.2 seconds. While Gatorade uses a fructose, glucose, sucrose blend, POWERade does use maltodextrin -- the complex version of dextrose. I've heard the reason why Gatorade doesn't have maltodextrin is because they believe it has shown no physiological benefit and it is more difficult to dissolve than the three carbohydrate blend that they have.
Last year, Gatorade introduced itself to India in limited areas. This year, as the national rollout comes, Coca-Cola will be launching a POWERade presence in the country and a local entrant, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF), will launch their own sports drink called "Stamina." GCMMF's drink will come in lemon flavor only and will debut in select areas of India including Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, according to the Financial Express.
