Powerade and Propel try new marketing approaches in sports drink wars

Functionality and teamwork are the new rules of the sports drink marketing game, with Coca-Cola Co.'s Powerade and PepsiCo’s Propel launching new branding and ad campaigns.

Both brands are working in concert with their battling larger sibling brands as part of a portfolio strategy: Coca-Cola has put Powerade under the umbrella of Bodyarmor, a premium sports beverage it acquired in 2021. Meanwhile, Propel is reaffirming its connection to Gatorade. Both Powerade and Propel have named new celebrity endorsers.

Powerade is embarking on what Bodyarmor Chief Marketing Officer Matt Dzamba called its biggest campaign ever, increasing advertising spend by 60% year-over-year and positioning the brand as a spirited underdog. Powerade's U.S. measured-media spending was $16.3 million from January through September of last year and $21.6 million in full-year 2021, according to Vivvix.

The campaign, called “Underestimated to Undeniable,” highlights new packaging and a formulation change that gives Powerade 50% more electrolytes than Gatorade, along with vitamins C and B12, which Gatorade does not have, Dzamba said. That change brings more functionality to the thirst quencher and plays into larger trends in beverages and health.

“Functionality is just a huge part of the business,” said Dzamba, noting that functional drinks now represent 60% of sales and 75% of the growth in the industry, citing Kantar World Panel data from 2017 to 2021. “You’re just seeing a huge, massive shift towards that.”

Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant is Powerade’s newest endorser. The NBA player stars in a 60-second ad called “What 50% More Means” and narrated by Ja Morant’s father, Tee Morant, over music by NLE Choppa. The spot recreates the behind-the-scenes work that Morant devoted to the sport in his early years. 

The spot comes from OpenX, the unit WPP created in 2021 to handle Coca-Cola Co. brands. It will debut nationally on March 14 during the NCAA tournament, which Powerade has been an official partner of since 2010. Media buys include national TV, out-of-home, radio and social media, according to the brand. Powerade a year ago featured Simone Biles in a global campaign that focused on athletes’ mental health.

Bringing Powerade under Bodyarmor's wing will bring a new edge to the brand, Dzamba predicted, while combining with Bodyarmor to be a “1-2 punch” to No. 1 Gatorade. 

Pepsi's Gatorade family commanded a 70.3% volume share and 67.1% dollar share in sports drinks, according to nine-month Beverage Digest figures from November. Coca-Cola's Powerade and Bodyarmor combined for 26.5% volume share and 27.3% dollar share. Bodyarmor's growth rate has slowed considerably since Coca-Cola took over the brand, Beverage Digest reported, although figures show only small changes in market share, with Bodyarmor gaining 0.8 points in volume share and losing 0.5% in dollar share over the nine-month period ending in November.

“We have a spirit in which we do things that I think is going to be really fun to bring to an established dynamic brand like Powerade that’s been around a long time and has high awareness,” said Dzamba, who has been with Bodyarmor for eight years and took over the CMO role in November. The goal with Powerade, he said, is “to reframe, and write a new chapter with some of the principles we’ve used for Bodyarmor—to be disruptive, to be aggressive, to have an edge, to be competitive. So I think there’s a fun challenge there. And there is the ability to obviously play these two brands as complementary brands out into the marketplace.”

Morant was an appropriate pick for Powerade, Dzamba said, because Morant, too, was something of an underdog. He was overlooked by most college recruiters until a Murray State University coach found him playing pickup in a gym. Morant went on to star in the 2019 NCAA tournament and eventually became the second overall pick in that year's NBA Draft. “His journey from underestimated to undeniable became such a great fit for us to launch this campaign in the spirit of Powerade being an underestimated brand, a challenger brand,” Dzamba said.

At PepsiCo, Propel last month unveiled a new brand identity designed to reinforce how its products support the functional needs of “everyday exercisers.” The orange lightning bolt from Gatorade adorns the new logo and the package calls out “Gatorade electrolytes” in its formulation.

Actor Michal B. Jordan is the brand’s new face. The multi-year partnership with Jordan includes a custom bottle that promotes his upcoming “Creed III” movie, sponsorship of dance and cheer events at Jordan’s HBCU Legacy Classic basketball tournament, and collaborations on the brand’s work to provide access and opportunities to fitness in underrepresented communities, PepsiCo said.

Sports drinks accounted for $9.78 billion in sales for the 52 weeks ended Jan. 28, according to NielsenIQ’s all-outlet and convenience store figures, an 11.2% increase from the same period a year ago.