GATORADE: TURNING CRICKET ATHLETICISM INTO BUSINESS SUCCESS

TitleGATORADE: TURNING CRICKET ATHLETICISM INTO BUSINESS SUCCESS
BrandPEPSICO
Product / ServiceGATORADE
CategoryA03. Best Brand or Product Integration into a Feature Film, Existing TV Show and/or Series
EntrantPHD Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Contributing Company NINE NETWORK AUSTRALIA Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Entrant Company PHD Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Media Agency PHD Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Darren Reed Phd Implementation Planning Manager
Catherine Barnard Phd Comms Planning Director
Stewart Gurney Phd Strategy Director
Amy Francis Phd Business Director

The Campaign

SBS and ABC (national broadcasting channels) have major restrictions in regards to brands and integration in programs. Our domestic free to air channels have some limited restrictions, however it’s largely self-policing, based on the networks’ opportunity to maximise revenue. There is a constant balancing act between brand involvement, quality control and program integrity. The majority of content integration is managed via the networks rather than brands doing deals with production companies. In off peak and in subscription TV there are more opportunities for brand involvement, prime time is the most difficult to secure and is based on a number of variables; ratings and audience, being two key factors. Channel Nine is a free to air channel. They are open to commercial involvement but are prize editorial integrity above all else. Gatorade was allowed to work within their programme content because we were adding to their editorial. Our access to training content and cricket trainers meant we could complement and enhance Nines existing cricketing coverage.

Results

Gatorade has been a partner with Cricket Australia for 8 years. In recent years the sponsorship had stalled. Stagnant brand metrics and declining purchase intent meant that we had to find a new way to reinvigorate this partnership. We needed a unique point of view about cricket. Via our qualitative research we discovered a powerful insight. Australians didn't see cricket players as real athletes. For Gatorade, where athletic credibility has a proven link to purchase intent, this presented a real disconnect. Moreover this simply wasn't true. In today’s highly competitive game, cricket players have to train and work just as hard as any athlete or sporting professional. This created a massive opportunity. By proving to consumers that cricket players were in fact athletes and their ability was enhanced by Gatorade, we could really amplify our cricket association. Our strategy was simple: use content to prove that Cricket Players are athletes We worked with Channel Nine to create a series of integrated content pieces to get consumers thinking about cricketing athleticism. Audience data identified 3 Channel Nine programmes that indexed highly against our audience: Today Show, Cricket Show and Wide World of Sport. Each programme had a bespoke piece of content created for it that proved cricket athleticism in a way that was relevant to that programme. Today show created a segment about the pre-test build up, Cricket Show created content pieces on the evolution of cricketing athleticism and the Wide World of Sport facilitated a commentator panel discussion around the impact that training has on match day results. The result was different but very interlinked content proof points. We also created an in match ‘drinks break’ where Gatorade was actually given to players in real time. Shots of cricketing athletes drinking the product were then amplified across Nines broadcast

1) Being in already popular environments instead of getting people to come to us it was imperative that we took our opinion into already popular spaces, the programmes selected indexed very highly against our audience (index 132) 2) Using content to create debate Behind the scenes training footage or coach training plans and tips, got people talking about our point of view. Creating a panel show was key to amplifying the debate 3) Making our content credible with existing personalities leveraging cricketing talent such as Michael Slater and Mark Taylor made our content/opinion more compelling and credible

1) We proved Cricket players are athletes 90% of cricket fans post the campaign said they now believed that cricket players were athletes, and our sponsorship awareness increase by nearly +9% 2) We drove purchase intent That all important Purchase intent score improved +6% from campaign pre-read and claimed consumption increased by 3% “PHD created a clearly defined and unique positioning for Gatorade that cut through the competitive clutter whilst remaining truly relevant to the brand and the product” Roger Edmonds Gatorade Brand Manager Aus and NZ (Source: Nine insight, MWB, Nielsen Homescan)