Gatorade Tells Huge Demographic to Get Lost

This is a very interesting commercial. They are actually telling a large demographic that they do NOT want their business. If you aren’t someone who works up a sweat, their product is NOT for you. There are a hell of a lot of people who don’t sweat every day and like this product… now the brand is telling them they are not interested in them.

The power of exclusion / premium product branding is that it forms tighter identification bonds with its core customers.

This kind of brand presentation can help ‘position’ the company as a ‘specialty’ company and prefers to cater to an exclusive group of consumers.

The (Gatorade) are not interested in the casual “sport drink” purchaser, they are interested in helping THEIR clients feel elite/special for purchasing the brand.

Could this work for them? Of course.

Can work for a lot of businesses -even small business.

But it must be handled very carefully, because they can be opening themselves up to some pretty interesting pushback from competitors – who could use the exclusionary message against them.

Gatorade is NOT a stupid brand, and I am pretty sure they know what they are doing here. They want to position themselves as THE premier sports drink available for consumers thinking of a purchase.

It will be fun to watch this campaign unfold.

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