Gatorade: Case study

Credits & Description:

Brand PEPSICO
VML Kansas City, USA Entrant Company
VML Kansas City, USA Idea Creation
GIPHY New York, USA Production
OMD USA Chicago, USA Media Placement
NATIV.LY San Francisco, USA Additional Company
HQG STUDIOS Dubuque, USA Additional Company
RESOLUTION MEDIA Chicago, USA Additional Company
Kenny Mitchell Gatorade Senior Director, Consumer Engagement
Michael Smith Gatorade Head of Digital Strategy, Consumer Engagement
Rob McCutcheon Gatorade Senior Marketing Manager, Consumer Engagement
Brandon Rhodes Gatorade Associate Marketing Manager, Consumer Engagement
Katherine Montiel Vidaillet Gatorade Director of Communications
Debbi Vandeven VML Global Chief Creative Officer
John Godsey VML North American Chief Creative Officer
Tony Snethen VML Executive Creative Director
Glen Scott VML Group Creative Director
Jose Martinez VML Creative Director / Copywriter
Kyle Gracey VML Associate Creative Director / Art Director
Nate Steele VML Senior Copywriter
Mark Renken VML Associate Director, Strategy & Insights
Stephanie DeCelles VML Managing Director, Client Engagement
Melissa Ide VML Director, Client Engagement
Maggie Glenski VML Senior Account Manager, Client Engagement
Charles Gooch VML Social Media Supervisor
Madeleine Stroth VML Channel Manager
Susan Hatten VML Senior Producer
Betty Greiner VML Production Business Manager
Brandon Saranik OMD Group Director
Nathan Mosack Resolution Media Group Director
Sam Klein Nativ.ly Partner
Chris Kritsas Nativ.ly Director
Domitille Adebimpe GIPHY Producer
Natalie James GIPHY Art Director
Josh Freydkis GIPHY Art Director
Nicky Rojo GIPHY Art Director
Jeff Stiles VML Editor
Ty Stecklein HQG Studios Business Owner
Synopsis
At the end of every Super Bowl, the winning team’s coach gets a cooler of Gatorade poured on their head, symbolizing the end of a championship season. During that time, our brand has everyone talking – but the conversations don’t always last long. For Super Bowl 52, we didn’t want to talk to teen athletes, we wanted to get them talking for the entire game.
Strategy
78% of teens (13-17) who use a smartphone, use social media and messaging apps to share their lives. And over half spend 3+ hours in those apps, messaging back-and-forth with friends every day. For Super Bowl 52 -the biggest sports moment of the year- Gatorade looked to gain their attention by tapping into one of their favorite messaging tools: GIFs. Through native keyboard functionality on platforms like Twitter, Facebook Messenger, Google Keyboard and more, GIForade brought the Gatorade brand directly into Super Bowl conversations.
GIPHY serves 2.5 billion GIFs to 300 million active users every day. After creating hundreds of branded GIFs, Gatorade launched them on GIPHY the day before the game. So, for every Super Bowl action, there was a corresponding GIForade reaction.
Our elite NFL players also helped push GIForade to their followers using our GIFs and tweeting links to their reaction libraries for fans to use.
Relevancy
GIForade brought the Gatorade brand into millions of teen competitive athlete conversations by natively enhancing their Super Bowl experience. GIPHY serves 2.5 billion GIFs to 300 million active users every single day, all integrated into the keyboards of every social channel and messaging platform. Gatorade created hundreds of branded GIFs, launching them on GIPHY the day before the Super Bowl. So, for every action, from game-inspired comments to everyday social exchanges, there was a GIForade reaction.
Outcome
GIForade racked up 118 Million views on Super Bowl Sunday alone – more than the actual game’s TV broadcast audience (103MM). It’s also the most by any brand on GIPHY in a single day ever. This helped Gatorade enter the Top 10 brands on GIPHY overnight. But it didn’t stop when the game ended. GIForade became a part of everyday conversations and within 8 weeks, GIForade reached 420 Million views, with 79% of them being earned organically. Tweets from NFL players Travis Kelce, Todd Gurley and Deshaun Watson reached a potential 2 million fans and generated around 2,000 organic engagements.
Execution
Gatorade recruited a team of Internet-famous GIF-makers (respected influencers from communities like GIPHY and Reddit). And gave them access to something they’d never had before: NFL footage. They remixed over 50 GIFs, adding animations, special effects and Gatorade branding.
We also produced over 200 reaction GIFs with the help of NFL athletes on-site in Minneapolis, the game’s host city. Using last year’s top searched Super Bowl terms, we hand-picked the best GIFs associated with every keyword and had our NFL athletes recreate them.
GIForade launched the day before the Super Bowl. The entire library was natively added to the keyboards of every social media channel and messaging platform using GIPHY’s API.
All assets were strategically tagged with over 2,000 organic and paid search terms. When users searched for a Super Bowl relevant keyword, GIForade GIFs were the top results, as well as having a constant presence in GIPHY’s trending feeds.
Campaign Description
GIForade brought the Gatorade brand into millions of teen competitive athlete conversations by natively enhancing their Super Bowl experience.
Gatorade produced hundreds of branded GIFs for commenting on the Super Bowl in real time. We recruited a team of elite GIF-makers (respected influencers from communities like GIPHY and Reddit) to remix NFL footage. We also filmed original reaction GIFs with the help of 8 elite NFL athletes, including Peyton and Eli Manning, JJ Watt and Todd Gurley. GIForade GIFs were created to align with the 50 most-searched Super Bowl terms so our library of GIFs could be used to comment on the Super Bowl in real time.
Using GIPHY, GIForade was natively pushed to the keyboards of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as messaging platforms like iMessage, Messenger, WhatsApp and Slack.