Darren Rovell's Gatorade blog

Latest Isotonic Drink: Coconut Juice

I thought I saw it all. The juice of everything -- including the cucumber (pickle, to be more specific) -- is being marketed as the isotonic solution to Gatorade. Then I walked into Whole Foods tonight and saw Amy & Brian's Coconut Juice. On the back, it said it was an isotonic drink perfect for before or after exercise to help combat dehydration. Perfect, except for the fact that it was one of the most hidious things I've ever tasted. Just to clarify coconut juice is the water that is found inside young coconuts. I can't imagine anyone choosing this over Gatorade -- or even pickle juice for that matter.

Gatorade A.M.: The Answers

Enough of the silence. Enough of the jokes. It's time to get some real answers about Gatorade A.M. Since the public is only armed with an apparently misleading label on the back of the Gatorade A.M. bottle, we decided to go to Dr. Craig A. Horswill, senior research fellow for the Gatorade Science Institute and ask him why it makes sense for Gatorade to pitch the public a drink that helps them recover from the fluid loss they lose when they are sleeping.

Me: How am I losing fluids when I'm sleeping?

Horswill: Well, when you sleep 7 or 8 hours, you are not putting fluids back in your body and so you lose fluids through various ways including urine, breathing and water loss from skin. It's why when you wake up in the morning, you might notice that you weigh one or two pounds less than you did the night before.

Me: This is being made fun of because it seems to be coming out of nowhere. Why hasn't anyone ever talked about it being important for athletes to replace fluids lost from sleep?

Horswill: To be honest, people really haven't looked at it that much before. The notion here isn't really about weight loss, it's about the fact that people might not be adequately hydrated. Most of all, when you sleep there's a depletion of the glycogen in your liver and those are the kinds of reserves you'd like to have to have a better workout in the morning.

Me: I realize you are not a marketer, but why this product now?

Horswill: People don't drink as much in the morning. Part of this is to encourage drinking and to get the fluids that they need into their bodies.

Me: How much do people really need this product?

Horswill: It's tough to say. We know it's more necessary for a person who does a hard workout in a heat stressed environment than a person who does a workout at a fitness center with air conditioning, but drinking in both situations, we feel, will make the athlete feel better.

Here's my conclusion, though this obviously won't be the last I have to say about this. Gatorade A.M. is actually a good idea. Yesterday, I lost 2.2 pounds during the night. I went to the gym without drinking anything (I usually drink Rain or Propel) and ran 4 miles. I admit I had a tougher time. I probably could have used something. The idea that someone at Gatorade had was, "Let's make lighter flavors for morning workout people." Makes sense. Although it's nice that Gatorade has the science behind this, I think they should have stopped there. Their marketing pitch should have been and the label on the back of the bottle should have been -- morning flavors for morning exercisers. That's it. Now that would sell at the supermarkets. Gatorade could then point consumers to the Gatorade Web site to tell them more about fluid loss during sleep. But the issue is that the main selling point was never meant to be fluid loss during sleep. If that was the case, as I pointed out before, they would be aiming this product to non-athletes.

Gatorade A.M. Hits "The Daily Show"

Not sure if any of you saw this, but Jon Stewart had Gatorade A.M. on "The Daily Show" last night. You can see it all here below. Stewart pulls the thing out and announces it and the audience laughs as if its not a real product and its clearly not a real label on the back. What I'm hoping to get over the next couple days is more hard data on what you lose during sleep -- and I'm dead serious here -- how dehydrated people are when they wake up and how much of a problem this is, especially for people who work out in the morning. Stay tuned.

Gatorade A.M. Is For Sleep!

Stupid me. I thought it was a bad copywriter. But apparently Gatorade A.M. really is about replenishing what you lose from sleep. Not just the great idea of having good, less harsh flavors for people who work out in the morning. How do I know this? I just got a more comprehensive fact sheet from Gatorade. And I got this ridiculous information.

"Based on research on fluid turnover, people lose fluids overnight while they're sleeping -- sometimes as much as a quart of water, similar to the amount to what one might lose during an hour long workout. Energy reserves in the liver are also greatly reduced overnight."

Are they kidding me? Do they need to go read my book again?

This from my book, from former Gatorade exec Sue Wellington: "The vulnerability to me is that you get so excited about the big opportunity and you somehow forget that you are a club, that you are for athletes, and that you won't ever do anything commercially that gets in the way of that."

You think she ever thought that Gatorade was going to go after the "sleeping market!" Holy smokes.

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.

Gatorade A.M.: Absolute Mistake

Throughout the writing of my book, in all my interviews with Gatorade people, they always stressed one thing -- stay on point. Gatorade might be used for hangovers and to rehydrate sick youngsters, but the one rule was never stray from the message of hydration for athletic occasions.

That's why I'm baffled by the positioning of this Gatorade A.M. product. Gatorade A.M. was first reported on this blog on March 23, 2006. That's because Gatorade filed for its trademark and we were left speculating exactly what they would do. In November, a reader wrote he had tasted it, but it was only until yesterday when I first spotted it in the stores.

So let's tell you what it is. It's actually your same old Gatorade, but it comes in morning flavors -- like orange-strawberry and tropical mango and cranberry-raspberry is apparently coming. That makes sense to me. Good idea. I sometimes can't take some of these flavors while working out at 5 a.m.

What doesn't make any sense to me is that the copy on the back of the Gatorade A.M. It just doesn't do an adequate job of explaining exactly what this thing is. You judge for yourself.

This straight from the back of the bottle: "Gatorade A.M. helps you put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night's sleep."

What? What type of energy am I losing while lying on my back for seven hours? I thought that's what sleeping was for!

This is the second time Gatorade is trying to rationalize the brand for breakfast. Let's take you back to 1994, when Gatorade introduced a drink called Sunbolt. It was high in carbs and high in caffeine and the 12-ounce drink had 210 calories. It lasted six months.

"It filled a niche for some people, but from an equity standpoint it was a dangerous direction to go in. It wasn't for the athlete, and it probably should have been managed under a separate name."

This isn't a separate product and I think it could work. But it will fail if the copy on the back of the bottle isn't amended. People will pick up on the shelves and put it right back down. The product is not yet on the official Gatorade Web site.

Gatorade Signs Maria Sharapova

We knew this would be coming. Gatorade announced that it has signed tennis star Maria Sharapova. It's a good deal for Gatorade because they really haven't had a woman star since Mia Hamm and Sharapova can really help them in countries where Gatorade isn't as strong as it is in the US. Sharapova is big in Europe and Asia, areas where Gatorade needs her help.

Sharapova will star in a Gatorade ad that will launch in early 2007 and she'll immediately start appearing on packaging in Italy and Australia.

At nearly $1 million a year, Sharapova will be one of Gatorade's highest earning endorsers. It will be interesting to see how much Gatorade cares about men's tennis players. J. Darius Bikoff, founder of Glaceau's VitaminWater, told CNBC that the next guy he wants to see endorsing the product is men's No. 1 Roger Federer.