Powerade misfires

I just answered an interesting email from Steve over at Adrants asking me if our current Gatorade campaign (breaking in a post earlier today) was affected by the very-much-present-tense legal wrangling between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

The short answer is NO and the long answer is, you must be crazy. (Not you, Steve, but you know what I mean.)

I’ve seen two spots in the Powerade campaign. The first involved a shoe that had 50 eyelets vs. a shoe that had 10. The message: 10 is fewer than 50, a reference to calorie count.

The second spot, and the subject of the recent suit, involved a farmer hauling 50 bales of hay vs. one hauling 10, but took the same “10 is fewer than 50″ message into the realm of performance.

First, I think (in my very humble, non-legal-eagle opinion) that PepsiCo is correct in stating that there’s no way Coca-Cola can substantiate this performance claim. In other words, suit on.

Second, and specifically in regards to the calorie claim, I say so what?

Core consumers of sports drinks, or at least Gatorade, are leave-it-all-on-the-field athletes who are extremely conscious of nutrition and its effect on their bodies. These same core consumers are using sports drinks during peak physical performance.

Let me repeat that. Peak physical performance. As in, “Holy crap, I’m burning a ton of calories chasing this soccer ball around the field.”

It’s at precisely those times when you’ll need several things in order to maintain peak performance, including calorie replenishment.

Now, if Powerade’s core consumer is some guy who only ever sits on his sofa picking lint out of his navel while the big game is on TV somewhere in the background and who drinks Powerade in hopes of feeling like he’s a part of it all, then I suppose a “10 is less than 50″ message might be meaningful to him (assuming he even gives a shit about his body).

But to the person who leaves real blood, sweat and tears on the playing field or who leaves that same blood, sweat and tears on the ground, out under the hot sun, doing the jobs that keep the wheels of commerce nicely oiled? Screw it. Give me those 40 extra calories, I’m burning more than that for every hour of exertion.

I suspect Powerade’s latest campaign is more a reaction to PepsiCo’s gains that came about, specifically, due to increasing sales of Gatorade. And it will come at the terrible cost (to Coca-Cola) of undercutting any sort of “we provide the stuff atheletes really need” equity Powerade might have built.

Good luck with that, guys.

Sorry Coca-Cola, but you’re about to bleed red. If you need replenishment, I’d suggest a nice frosty bottle of Gatorade.

UPDATE: There’s been a “Sports Drink Settlement.”

Email Article Tuesday, March 21st, 2006 at 10:05pm Mack Simpson

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