How To Solve Gatorade A.M. Branding Problems

The issue is very clear, Gatorade has a branding problem with Gatorade A.M. From what I can piece together, here are the facts. Last November, they soft launched this drink that is basically meant to be Gatorade in more palatable morning flavors. Aside from a couple articles in trade publications, this was mentioned nowhere so there was no communication with the consumer. Over the next couple of months, Gatorade A.M. started showing up in supermarkets. With no advertising and no information on the Gatorade Web site, the only place a consumer could go to make their purchase decision was on the back of the bottle. That's where it says, as I described in the last post, "Gatorade A.M. helps you put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night's sleep." So the only message the consumer gets is that they think that PepsiCo is trying to sell you a Gatorade whose main job it is to replenish what you lost when you were sleeping. That's not what it is. The copy should read, "We know you exercise in the morning and sometimes you don't want to drink our sharp flavors, that's why we've developed this morning line of flavors for you." There. Very simple. Now I know that there's going to be some advertising coming out with Gatorade A.M. in the coming months, but I wonder what damage has already been done. How many test markets has it done badly in because people didn't understand what it was and had nowhere to go? I've written about it only a couple times and plenty of my hits are coming from people going to Google and typing in "Gatorade A.M." When you don't provide consumers with enough information to buy a product, no matter what stage of the product cycle you are in, you're in trouble.