New Gatorade Packaging

Gatorade recently released new packaging for all of it's products. Here's a quote from the press release, from Craig Horswill, senior research fellow:

Gatorade understands different people have different wants – you can’t speak to athletes and active people with a ‘one size fits all’ mentality. What athletes and active individuals do share is the need for adequate hydration, which is delivered through Gatorade, the most thoroughly researched sports beverage in the world – and we know nothing rehydrates, refuels or replenishes better.

My Take
With the first part of his quote, Craig hits the nail on the head. You can’t speak to athletes and active people with a ‘one size fits all’ mentality. In the past, I would have considered Gatorade to be a traditional brand but this is the mentality of a lifestyle brand. If they continue to use this philosophy moving forward, they should come up with some very focused products for the broad range of athletes they aim to serve.

Soccer versus Football

What do you do when you have a major sports brand that caters to two important sports? When you type in nikefootball.com or adidasfootball.com, what do you expect to see? Soccer is a globally relevant sport, but football is America's current national pastime. Because they share the same name, some even consider the two sports rivals.

It may seem simple once you've seen these solutions, but both Nike and Adidas get it right. By letting their visitors choose their sport, they avoid a dangerous situation in which they assume which one visitors are seeking. These are the types of details that lifestyle brands must get right to be successful.

Three Ways ESPN Can Double its MLS success

As we see over and over, sports marketing boasts some of the best lifestyle marketing approaches. However, when ESPN signed on to cover Major League Soccer in the U.S., they took a pretty traditional approach to marketing a new league. As a result, their ratings were flat, on par with the WNBA. ESPN and MLS have a huge opportunity to improve their ratings if they remember some key lifestyle marketing rules:

1. Focus on the core.
When ESPN introduced MLS, they chose the slogan, "You’re a soccer fan; you just don’t know it yet." This slogan forced soccer on the mainstream and is a great example of how ESPN tried to attract new soccer fans without first gaining the respect of the old ones. They used the NFL's Skycam and also zoomed in on players faces like an NBA game. This didn't work well for the core audience, who missed key plays during the match because of the superfluous camera work. MLS is now using the slogan, "Football. Futbol. Soccer," which is a great move in the right direction to acknowledge the global nature of the sport and support hardcore fans both inside and outside of the U.S.

2. Educate us all about soccer.
I believe that every sport is inherently boring if you aren't properly educated on how to watch it. Any hockey fanatic will tell you to watch the players not the puck, and MMA fans know the difference between a great guard and time wasting. The NFL has a done a great job teaching people how to watch the game by drawing out the receiving routes and blocking schemes. The MLS shouldn't be a carbon copy (see my first point), but it has many opportunities to teach both hardcore and mainstream fans how to better watch the game.

3. Know the important details and them right.
I was excited when Sportscenter included a free kick by Manchester United's Paul Scholes as one of it's top ten plays of the week. But I cringed when the announcer mispronounced his name (it's Skoals, not Scholls). This is the type of detail that ESPN has to get right if it's serious about building up the MLS.

Since last year, the MLS and ESPN have smoothed out their relationship with hardcore fans, but things can still be better. I urge them to stay focused on the specific needs of soccer and it's fans to make the league as successful as it can be.

Red Bull Soapbox Race

Red Bull visited Cincinnati's Mount Adams neighborhood last weekend for their well known Soapbox Race. It was a fun, entertaining event that also gave Red Bull the opportunity to let people try it's latest product, Red Bull cola (which I thought tasted pretty good). Like all Red Bull marketing events, the Soapbox Race was not about the new product, it was a celebration of the brand's bold personality. The best representation of this personality was an entry called The Last Supper. True to the Red Bull brand, the driver boldly steered the extra long table from Jesus Christ's central position, apostles on either side.



Many people were surprised Red Bull hosted their event in Cincinnati, thinking that a larger city would be more appropriate for the promotion. However, Red Bull knows that its audience doesn't exist only in big cities. Since the beginning, they've created relationships one at a time by giving away their energy drink to anyone who needed the kick. Even after many years of success, events like the Soapbox Race show that Red Bull still understands that they're selling an idea, not just a product.

Rock Racing: here to say

Rock Racing is a pro cycling team sponsored by denim brand Rock and Republic (who make some of my favorite jeans). This is fairly interesting on its own, in that cycling and denim don't generally go hand-in-hand, but the team is unique in more ways than one. First, they generate a lot of controversy in the cycling world because the team has several confirmed dopers on the roster (this doesn't bother me since I am positive 99% of all professional athletes juice outside of action sports). Second, and more importantly in the context of lifestyle marketing, they bring a ton of swagger and rock and roll style to the fairly staid world of cycling. From their site:

When the Rock Racing Team shows up for a race they arrive with the same flair and edge that is synonymous with the team’s major sponsor Rock & Republic. Rolling up in style, the six Cadillac Escalades, the Rock Racing trailer and the 35 foot rig deliver the first excitement of the day. Next, don’t expect just ordinary kits—not when Michael Ball is sponsoring you! The kits have a different color and design elements for each race adding both style and sex appeal to the sport.

My take
I could tell you my thoughts, but Fat Cyclist pretty much said it better than I could (emphasis mine):

What, then, should a self-respecting cyclist think of Rock Racing? Certainly, you’ve been asking yourself that question, along with others, such as:

Should I root for them, since they’ve got some of my favorite racers of days gone by?

Should I hate them for face-slapping a sport which frankly is all slapped-out at the moment?

Should I just grab a bag of popcorn and enjoy the circus?

The reason that Rock & Republic is able to sell clothes for the square of their actual value is because Michael Ball brings attitude to those clothes. And by "attitude," I mean that he augments his natural unlikeability with aggressive meanness, and the confidence brought on by the self-certainty that he is never, ever, ever wrong.

As you can tell, this guy isn't the biggest Rock Racing fan, but that just means they're doing their job. The best lifestyle brands are always polarizing, and that is certainly a good way of describing Rock Racing.