Darren Rovell's Gatorade blog

The End

It is with great sorrow that I write today to say that this is the last post on the Gatorade blog. In 14 months, I've written 309 posts and got smart feedback from many of you. I still deeply love covering the brand and the growing industry, but because of increased responsibilities, I no longer feel I can devote the time that this deserves. I will continue to leave the blog active for people who want to search the archives. For those of you who are interested in Gatorade, I obviously encourage you to purchase my book. Thanks you all for making the sports drink world a better place and if you'd like to contact me, I'm still at TheGatoradeGuy@aol.com.

Darren

Gatorade To Sponsor Gay Games

Gatorade will be the official sports drink of the games, which run from July 15-22. Gatorade has joined over 300 other corporations and agencies in support of this summer's Gay Games. In all my years of covering Gatorade, I've studied how Gatorade has marketed to different age groups, athletes in different sports and male and female, but I've never talked about marketing to sexual orientation. This is an interesting one that I'm intrigued about. I've seen studies that say that gay Americans have a higher disposable income and tend to be more brand loyal, but I wonder if there are any studies that say that they, on average, work out more than the heterosexual population. 

Gatorade & NHL

The SportsBusiness Journal is reporting that PepsiCo has signed a three-year deal with the National Hockey League and the players union, which gives the company exclusive North American rights to associate Gatorade, Aquafina and its Lay's brands with the property. The publication says the deal is worth about $4 million a year. The NHL has had a deal with Coca-Cola for the previous 17 years.

Dwyane Wade: A Brilliant Move

I have to take this time to commend the folks at Gatorade for going after Dwyane Wade. I truly believe that he is the most marketable player in the NBA today and certainly if his Miami Heat can win one more game and win the championship, it will solidify him in that position. Good for Gatorade for making the move on Wade earlier this year before his price went up or before he took on some energy drink to sponsor.

Gatorade Goes On Offensive With Endurance

So a week after noting that I thought that the Gatorade Endurance strategy was off target, I have to admit that I'm impressed by the latest thing the company has done on this front. Gatorade hired Targetbase (http://www.targetbase.com/) to do a terrific direct marketing piece. I got a box in the mail. You open it up and it's a huge foldout piece that explains why Gatorade went Endurance. At the end, there's a coupon for a free try of the drink.

Wal-Marterade?

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while knows about this big lawsuit with the Coca-Cola bottlers and Coca-Cola. Wal-Mart basically controls everyone they deal with -- even Coke. A while back the big retailer asked Coke to directly ship POWERade to their stores instead of hand deliver to each store as the rest of the Coke system works so that they could cut down on costs. In return, Wal-Mart committed to double its purchase of POWERade and give it more shelf space to compete with Gatorade, which owns 80 percent of the marketplace. But since this arrangement would hurt the bottlers, 60 of them sued Coca-Cola and effectively hurt the talks. Today, some pretty meaty details got out, thanks to Coca-Cola filing a response in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Coke officials responded by saying that they basically have to do what Wal-Mart says for fear that it will kick them out all together.

"This is precisely what Wal-Mart has done with water sales in its stores where the two largest water products are warehouse delivered and Coca-Cola's and Pepsi's direct-store delivered water brands are left to fight for third place," officials said in the filing.

Gatorade Plant To Be Built In Oklahoma

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry has announced that PepsiCo will invest $180 million to construct a manufacturing and distribution facility in Pryor, Okla., which will create 280 jobs. The company will produce both Gatorade and Propel Fitness Water. The facility will service the six to eight state area in South central U.S. "We are pleased to award Oklahoma as the site of our newest plant," said Gatorade president Chuck Maniscalco. "Pryor is a wonderful community and an important transportation hub in the Southcentral region. We weighed many economic, community and resource factors in our final decision, and we are happy to call Oklahoma home to our ninth manufacturing and distribution facility." The facility will be in operation by Sept. 2007.

Gatorade Product Placement

Gatorade is of course the father of modern day product placement in sporting events. That's why it comes as no surprise that the brand was one of the most prominent brands in major championships this year. Nielsen Sports just released their Sponsorship Scorecard, which is meant for companies who want to try to gauge their return on their investment for marketing deals. Here are the most visible brands in the championships this year.

Daytona 500 (2/19/06): Lowe's Home Improvement, Chevrolet, Budweiser

U.S. Open Men's Final (9/11/05): JP Morgan Chase, Lexus Auto, Olympus

Super Bowl (2/5/06): Motorola, Gatorade, Pepsi

Rose Bowl (1/4/06): Citibank, Cingular Wireless, Gatorade

Gatorade Note

Terry Harlon was vacationing in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, when a one-day hike stretched into an eight-day affair. He got lost so he had to brave the elements with a water bottle and a compass.

A bottle of Gatorade did more than quench Terry Harlon’s thirst; it delivered a promise of rescue to the hiker in an attached note with the words, “We will be back,” on his eighth day lost in Rocky Mountain National Park, Harlon said today. According to news reports, he was spotted by helicopter on the eighth day, but the helicopter couldn't land. So they dropped a Gatorade bottle with this note on it: "Sit tight. We'll be back."

It was a perfect Gatorade moment. Then of course, the 48-year-old ruined it by telling reporters he wanted (Gatorade parent PepsiCo's competitor) a Coke!"

Gatorade.com Relaunches

I think the folks at Gatorade deserve kudos for their Web site relaunch. For years, it drove me nuts that they had this ridiculous pop-up stuff. It's an excellent site now. They have a "Meet the Scientists" of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute page, a really cool flavor finder, a pop-up Gatorade athletes page (note how the logos have been taken off Derek Jeter and Mark Prior), a TV commercials page and behind-the-scenes footage from the "It's A Whole New Ballgame" ad and an interview with Dwyane Wade.