Taking Notes on a Criminal Conspiracy

Around New Year's, Gatorade introduced a new brand strategy/ ad campaign based simply on the letter "G".

Watch it first so we can all be on the same page.
Here's a second, probably better one.

This series of ads came most likely as a response to Vitamin Water becoming crazy successful and supplanting Gatorade as America's Favorite Drink That Doesn't Have Alcohol/Caffeine in It. Gatorade needed to completely change their identity. They needed to get over the Lightning Bolt and the whole "Developed at the Swamp at the University of Florida to replenish electrolytes lost in the heat of battle" marketing angle. They needed everybody's favorite buzz word of the moment, Swagger (or Swag, which is to say the word Swagger, with Swagger.)

So they went with "G". It seemed clumsy to me at first. It seemed a little forced and wasn't all too sexy. Then it dawned on me that they were not shooting for sexy. By changing the name to just G and selling the product on the glory of athletic competition (not the performance in the game itself) and the cross-cultural implications of said glory, Gatorade gave itself a street drug name and brand positioning. The street drug of the sports world.

I really hope this was intentional, and I'm not at all mad at them for doing this.

To me, this change showed that Gatorade realized the manner its most likely consumed in. Most of the time, you're not gonna grab a Gatorade in the middle of athletic activity. There are options that are usually more convenient and equally effective, take water fountains for example. There's also your shiny Sigg or Nalgene to help you look young, active, and purposefully hydrated at all times. Oh, bottled water works too, since we're all now afraid of the stuff that comes out of pipes and is free.

Anyways, most of the time I'm stopping at a bodgea for a Gatorade if I'm hungover or just need a little sugar and salt combo to make up for not drinking water for a while. Gatorade knows this because Vitamin Water has made 50 a billionaire by marketing to Soccer Moms and Whooo-Girls who need to be emotionally comforted by their soft drink. Athletics are not a key factor in choosing which colored water you want to drink. Since fun, cheeky, and quirky were taken by Vitamin Water, Gatorade went the other way. They went Street.

I say they chose a street drug because they made it seem as if you had to be in the know to really understand G. The commercial's dark and rough, not bright and happy like Vitamin Water. Lil Wayne narrates it (he's both very street and an avid user of drugs). Words like golden and god are used. It's the idealized appeal of being a glorious athlete in a similar vein to the idealized appeal of drugs. They show the greatest in their particular genre, perople to be equally revered and feared: Ali, Wooden, Jordan, Russell, Jackie Robinson, Tiger. Hell, even Misty May and Kerri Walsh are the biggest ballers in the history of beach volleyball.

The commercial is trying to sell that Scarface side of the drug, not Dukie's mom neglecting to feed her kids because she's fiending. It's now the soft drink from the other side of the tracks; the one your parents were never too comfortable with when you said you were hanging at their place on a Friday night. Is G's parents home? Can you put them on the phone so I can talk to them?

I also want to emphasize the street slang part of the whole scheme. Drugs can have all sorts of connotations. Do you remember when the cop comes into your elementary or middle school and shows what all the drugs are? He'll talk about smoking marijuana or "puffing reefer"; all his slang was stiff and forced. That was Gatorade. Some scientist or Mad Men-era ad exec connected Florida Gators with the Tang-like substance they had developed. That''s not G. If Gatorade is Heroin, G is Herr-on. You want to walk up to the corner store and say, "Ay man, you got that G?"

So why should this matter? This is a major shift in brand positioning and marketing. This company revamped its whole image because it knows that you like The Wire, Reasonable Doubt Jay, and Dipset circa '03-'06. They figured out that I'd rather connect with the Elephant-Hide Jordan 3's floating four feet off the floor, tongue-out, than the 5 AM taining sessions and macrobiotic diets he put himself though to jump that high. Gatorade changed from a company selling sports beverages to pushers, knowing that it's the high of victory you want, not the challenge to get it. I kinda like it, and when it hit me, I went out to the corner and got that G.

~MC Squared