Gatorade was the brain child of University scientists who wanted to create the perfect re-hydrating drink for their school’s football team. But it’s been copied and challenged by dozens of other brands over the years. And now, the Gator says it’s time for a revamp!
“The goal is to reinvent Gatorade beyond a sports drink and into a hydration brand enticing for everybody,” Mike Del Pozzo, President of PepsiCo’s US beverage category, told CNN.
‘Electrolytes Drinks’
That’s the category’s official name. Not to be confused with energy drinks’, which are simply juice drinks or sodas infused with a certain amount of caffeine, to give drinkers a ‘boost’.
And it’s ballooned from a few players to more than 150 since 2020. Everyone, it seems, wants a piece of the healthy beverages market, and electrolytes drinks are seen as the best way to get one.
Electrolytes drinks are forecast to from $40 billion in sales last year to $80 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Why the revamp?
Gatorade still controls 60 percent of the market, according to current surveys. But it’s lost 3 percent of its share since the other players started flooding into its space. And that’s something the brand is not used to.
But there’s a difference the Gator wants to emphasize. Many newer beverages,“borrow the language of replenishment without leaning so heavily on overt sports positioning,” Howard Telford, head of soft drinks research at Euromonitor, told CNN. And the market is, “being shaped by products that feel more portable, more personalized, more functional or more natural.”
What they’re doing…
Gatorade’s first move in updating and upgrading the brand was to launch low-sugar formulations with no artificial colours, flavours or sweeteners, early last month.
Still in preparation is a bold plan to remove artificial colours from it’s top-three-selling regular flavours. Del Pozzo says recent surveys have revealed that will make nearly half of consumers more likely to buy the products.
One major new ‘thing’ other brands are promoting is pouch-packed powder concentrates users mix with their own water to create replenishment drinks on the spot. Sever such brands have come out in just the last year.
“People forget we were the OGs in powders. That’s how (Gatorade) was invented. We got disrupted,” Del Pozzo said. So that’s definitely one direction Gatorade will be exploring.
Also set to roll out late this year, along with the dye-free best-sellers, is ‘Gatorlyte Longer Lasting’, designed to keep users feeling hydrated longer.
Gatorade is also premium-priced, compared to other major competitors. The company is planning to cut prices on multi-packs of its products to compete.
My take
Sounds like another old, established brand that failed to notice young, upstart competitors moving up on the inside to challenge its supremacy.
But you have to give it to Gatorade for taking a bold, energetic stance. And making changes it would never have considered in the past.
I’ve always been suspicious of other re-hydration drinks. Probably since I ‘grew up’ with Gatorade, and hold the brand as dear as many boomers do Kleenex or Clorox, or Band-Aid. But I still believe it gives me the best bang for my hydration buck!
~ Maggie J.