Marketing Strategy and SWOT Analysis of Gatorade

Marketing strategies of refreshing drinks seem to almost always swim around the association with certain life events, periods and celebrations. Global brands adopted the logic of linking their products to human emotions and becoming “buddy of the moment”. Gatorade drove through one of the most exciting and outstanding paths: sports. American football, basketball, tennis, soccer; the list goes on and on, with marketing campaigns featuring top athletes from all over the world. For uncovering the story of conquering the world of sports, let’s analyze how Gatorade inscribed its name as a partner brand of energetic lifestyle. Discussing marketing strategy will give us an understanding of what the brand stands for, and a SWOT analysis will make the image clearer.

Gatorade’s mission statement says it all…

Mission Statement

“Backed by more than a 40 year history of studying the best athletes in the world and grounded in years of hydration and sports nutrition research at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, Gatorade provides scientifically formulated products to meet the sports fueling needs of athletes in all phases of athletic activity.”

Gatorade invested all the efforts to become an indivisible part of sport lifestyle, which they cherish in their mission statement. Brand advertisements often emphasize products as a necessity for an athlete and the best solution for maintaining their condition. Gatorade Sports Science Institute is another cornerstone in brand’s positioning, as it increases the trust in products’ quality and conformance to advertised standards. The mission statement mentions the strongest points that the brand wants to stamp in the minds of potential customers.

Vision Statement

Gatorade brand belongs to the Pepsi Corporation, thus they share a similar vision of maintaining sustainable growth and being a global leader in convenient foods and beverages by winning with purpose. The company strives to provide quality and walk with progress by constant evolution and accommodation of product lines to the dynamic needs of customers. As a result, the brand stays relevant successfully.

Brand’s positioning strategy is the logical continuation of company’s values.

The positioning that Gatorade adopted is visible in every social marketing campaign and follow a certain logic referring to major sports and top athletes. Let’s look at one of the Instagram posts to gain more insight on brand’s positioning strategy.

The IG post features one of the best female tennis players in the history of the sport: Serena Williams. Numerous professional achievements and being an influential figure on and off the court are the characteristics of a perfect persona to link with the Gatorade brand. Following her personality as not only a great athlete, but an idol to look up to, the post describes her role as a powerful woman, whose words and actions are able to provoke changes.

The post design itself demonstrates Serena Williams’ in a portrait at the center of attention, no extra features, on a neutral background, putting emphasizes on her personality and the power of the stance. The above discussed caption and the photo work great in combination, stressing her confident demeanor and power of name.

It is safe to say that Serena Williams and all other top athletes featured in Gatorade’s advertisements mastered their craft to an extent that it improves the world around them. Gatorade brand shares this goal, and that is why we can claim it belongs to The Hero Archetype.

Let’s uncover the characteristics of the archetype and the commonalities with Gatorade itself.

Desire: prove one’s worth through courageous and difficult action

Goal: exert mastery in a way that improves the world

Strategy: become the strongest version of yourself

Values: energy, discipline, focus, ambitiousness, ability to make tough choices, perseverance

These characteristics accurately resemble those of top performing athletes, and the closely associated brand of Gatorade as well.

Messaging levels of The Hero Archetype are as follows:

Level 1: noticing and identifying the need of defending someone

Level 2: mastery in a form of achievements, high motivation and constant need of competition Level 3: duty for the world around to commit and perform

Level 4: using your capabilities for something that makes a difference to you and to the world

The Hero brand archetype may be a suitable identity for the brand if it:

• starts as an underdog and wants to rival the competition
• has a strong product giving ability to perform tough challenges and executing them efficiently and effectively
• differentiates products from one that has problems with follow-through
• has a customer base identifying as good, moral citizens
• presents innovation that will have a major impact on the world
• helps people perform at and test their upper limits
• addresses major social problems and promoting awareness to address it
• operates in a competitive environment with an opponent to beat

After discussing the positioning strategy and brand archetype of Gatorade, let’s conduct a SWOT analysis of the brand.

Strengths

• Product quality: Gatorade succeeded to develop a high quality product and set a high standard in the market, making it tough for competitors and newcomers. Behind the high quality is the long history of research and modifications based on the constantly evolving needs of customers and the urge of following worldwide tendencies.
• Strong brand name: Gatorade has built a powerful brand closely associated with its market, with products that provide clear solution for customer problems. The name has become the one popping up in the minds of people when thinking about sports nutrition that takes care of conditioning.
• Science behind products: The brand has science backing up the reputation of products and gaining the trust of customers with this approach to the product development. Gatorade Sports Science Institute is a strong possession as it improves the image of the brand in the eyes of customers.
• Being a part of Pepsi Co: Being a part of one of the biggest food and beverage corporations is a strong boost for brand image, as the brands in the corporation assist each other’s development processes.

Weaknesses

• Relatively low advertising and visibility: Gatorade is not renowned for big advertisement campaigns and has always maintained a moderate level of visibility. A company of such level is expected to bring more to the table.
• People unaware about product benefits: The abovementioned low involvement in advertising could be one of the reasons that the product benefits are not well recognized. Gatorade products are scientifically develop to directly address conditioning and hydration issues, which are not so actively advertised currently.
• Many varieties tend to confuse the customers: The wide range of products is not always beneficial for a narrow segment that Gatorade competes in. Sometimes it may cause confusion among customers on what flavor or type of product to choose. That can be the reason of losing small market shares to the new entrants of the market.

Opportunities

• Celebrity endorsements: The world of sport always stays relevant. New superstars emerge and gain popularity very quickly, ensuring continuous development of the industry. Such conditions are perfect opportunities for Gatorade to include new stars in advertising campaigns and gain a chance to capture the audiences of those stars as well.
• Tap into new performance products: Sports is not only entertainment for people; it’s a lifestyle which undermines a lot of carrying for the body, nutrition and conditioning. Living an active life is one of the current trends. Such trends in the consumer behavior can open up new markets for the Gatorade. Additionally, the company can have opportunities to build new revenue streams and diversify their portfolio too.
• Capturing segments of competitors: Besides the new market opportunities, Gatorade has still many ways of “stealing” the shares of competitors by using their brand’s recognition power and presenting direct alternatives to the products of competitors.
• Expand with technology: The world of sports is indivisible from Gatorade, so are the modern technologies and gadgets, which assist in bringing sport closer to the lives of consumers. The technology market has a big potential for Gatorade products. There are opportunities of presenting innovative technology solutions by combining them with Gatorade products. Such product combinations already exist, but the potential to be realized is much more promising, and can give the company additional edge.

Threats

• Competitors: Gatorade’s power in the market is out of the question, but competitor companies present a threat. Brands like Powerade – the product of the biggest rival Coca Cola Company, Vitamin Water, and many more are still competing with Gatorade in this narrow market.
• Trend of online shopping: As Gatorade possesses a large supply chain, it may be harmed by the rising tendency of online shopping. The physical infrastructure part of the supply chain can suffer from changes in the buying behaviors of consumers.
• Indirect competitors: High-energy variants of fruit juice producers also present a threat for Gatorade. Many indirect beverage-producing companies oppose a threat to Gatorade as they start pivoting towards production of sports drinks. The market share for sports drinks is narrow itself, and losing even a small portion of it is relatively higher loss for the company.

Next up, let’s identify the segmentation strategy of Gatorade.

The following commercial of Gatorade will help us identify the target segment of Gatorade.

The commercial is highly a motivational compilation, featuring the diction of a famous American football player JJ Watts. The main idea that the video preaches is that biggest rivals must become the fuel for striving greatness. The American athlete’s speech is inspirational and influential because of his powerful character throughout his career.

From high school basketball to international football superstars, whether it is an individual or team sport, everyone has a rival who pushes you to the limits. Negative emotions like fear, the sense of possible loss, pain, and frustration must awaken hunger to achieve more.

We see the readiness to fierce competition in the eyes of athletes in the video while looking at their biggest rivals. A few scenes in the commercial demonstrate that the determination of beating someone who challenges you fuels you to invest more in your training on the path to becoming great.

Eventually, Gatorade associates itself as the other fuel besides your rivals that you need in the journey to achieving goals. Gatorade wants its customer segment to have the brand as one of the ingredients of success. After analyzing the commercial, the message and the characters, we come to the conclusion that Gatorade targets the Peacock segment.

Who are Peacocks?

Personality and Lifestyle:

People of this segment often tend to stand out in the crowd and love being the center of attention. That is clearly reflected on their appearance as people belonging to this segment want to be attractive and noticed everywhere they go. Self-confidence has become somewhat of an accessory of appearance, and is not a deep characteristic of a Peacock.

Peacocks are really determined and perseverant, and failure is just a signal to keep trying and working on mistakes. Success is of great importance and it makes them concentrate on the fields where they can really shine and demonstrate their strong sides. This is the primary characteristics that links Gatorade with the Peacocks segment. In the description of the Peacock we may often find treats of the Hero archetype that we discussed earlier.

Hobbies and Leisure:

Leisure activities and hobbies are the reflection of Peacocks’ personality and lifestyle. As Peacocks pay a lot of attention to their appearance and how they are perceived by other, they invest a lot in getting in shape and organizing life in a way to achieve their desired image. Working out in gyms is a common activity for people of this segment, but besides getting in shape, they like the socializing aspect of it as well.

People around Peacocks are friends and partners who are not chosen only because of who they are, but also because they add something to Peacock’s persona. The accessories are a really important factor, as they add to the appearance and affect others perception of them. Cars, cellphones, watches and other accessories feed their persona. In Gatorade’s case, it visible that top athletes are the main brand ambassadors, and the abovementioned preferences are typical to the vast majority of them.

Other Interesting Facts

• Peacocks are very progressive and want to always move forward, while keeping traditional values and staying loyal to life principles.
• Socializing is good, but family values are equally important. They are patriotic, but their action may not exactly reflect that.
• They love their country, but it is primarily their enabler to achieve their goals.
• Shopping is one of the important factors in Peacock’s character, as it is one of the contributors to the appearance.
• Brand loyalty is typical to them, because the brand is reflection of their personality and development.
• Well-known brands are a priority, and their shopping preferences are aimed towards flashy and visible clothing, fitting their personality.

Gatorade has succeeded to build a powerful and influential name in the narrow market of sports nutrition. Attention to details and strong perception of brand’s image brought to being the market leader throughout recent years. As we already discussed, superstar athletes and active lifestyle are indivisible of the brand. With Gatorade having a clear understanding of the segment they are targeting, every campaign, commercial or other marketing activity is aimed at satisfying the dynamic needs of their customers. After all the success, Gatorade still has to stay up-to-date and has a lot of room to grow and opportunities to capture. As for now, we have uncovered the marketing strategy and company analysis behind the success. For more blog posts like this, visit our main page!