Brand: Propel (PepsiCo)
Execution: TV
Target: Professionals
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
A monster made of junk runs through the streets of a city, to the tune of “Under Pressure” by Queen.  As the monster moves through the urban landscape its components, which include an unhappy boss, a tow-truck, taxicab and office furniture fall off one by one to reveal a solitary man jogging.  A female voiceover says, “Fit has a feeling - and a water: Propel Fitness Water.”

What Works:
This ad features spectacular visual effects which make it worth watching.  The stress monster does indeed look real and its decomposition into parts is transfixing.

The ad is also carefully targeted.  Instead of featuring a professional athlete who might attract teenage boys and young adults, the mainstay of parent brand Gatorade, this ad shows a professional adult male who one would think appeals to working women and men.  Propel is intended to compete with Glaceau’s Vitamin Water which has a similar target.  The spot is crafted to avoid competing with Gatorade.

What Doesn’t:
This spot is an excellent example means overwhelming the ends.  In other words, the visual effects are so spectacular that the brand message is lost.  In fact, this advertising blog reviewer watched the spot three times in the course of normal viewing and could not remember the name of the advertiser until the end of the spot - this in spite of having the active desire to review the spot for this blog.  Pity the consumer who has no such motivation.  The metaphor for this spot (having all of these external concerns weighing on you when you’re just trying to work out and get away from them) is also a little strained.

Finally, nothing unique about the brand comes through in this spot.  While the brand positioning does not need to be ‘features and benefit’ oriented, we don’t see a strong and unique emotional positioning here either.

Branding Bottom Line:
Great effects in that stress monster spot - what was that brand again?

Brand: Gatorade Rain
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here (Reviewed Spot is Titled ‘Rain’)
Target: Boys and Men
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description:
A basketball sits abandoned on an empty outdoor asphalt court surrounded by a high chain-link fence in a gritty urban landscape. We see the day pass as clouds move overhead and hear a clap of thunder as it starts to rain. The raindrops fall on the ball, but they are red, not the color of water. Almost immediately, the ball grows roots which snake into the asphalt and begins to expand like a prize pumpkin. Finally, the pod-basketball opens (in a scene reminiscent of Aliens) and a chiseled Kevin Garnett emerges. The voiceover says, “Introducing the rebirth of cool - Gatorade Rain. Start crisp, finish clean, stay cool in the heat. Gatorade Rain.” The spot ends with a product shot and a fade in and out of the Gatorade lightning bolt.

What Works:
This spot does a great job of reinforcing the core Gatorade brand attributes endurance and performance. The metaphor is simple - Rain is cooling and nourishing to the Earth as Gatorade Rain is to the body.

What is particularly appealing about this spot is that it carries forward visual imagery of Gatorade that has been very effective in the past while keeping it fresh. The Gatorade rain is close enough to the Gatorade sweat (or tears) in earlier spots that it is instantly recognizable and it makes this spot unique and ownable for Gatorade. Using rain as the metaphor here is also helpful because it reinforces Gatorade’s brand positioning as essential nourishment for the exercising body. It is a much better use of Garnett than in the Adidas campaign where he is made into a b-movie star.
This spot is also gorgeous visually and the pod-birth of the athlete is even startling enough to catch the attention of a fast-forwarding TiVo owner.

What Doesn’t:
While it was easy to link this spot to Gatorade and although we believe that it does a good job of reinforcing core Gatorade attributes, it was not as effective at introducing the new product. The pitch for Gatorade Rain almost gets lost in the storm - so to speak - which is both noisy and visually dominating. It also is not entirely clear to this Advertising Blog whether ‘Starts Crisp. Finishes Clean.’ will be meaningful code to teenage boys who are the core audience for these drinks. That sounds more like beer drinker code to us, but perhaps that is the point.

Darren Rovell, the top Gatorade expert and blogger points us to his blog where a number of Gatorade enthusiasts talk about their horror at seeing the Alien-like effects and distaste at the red rain. This is not our reaction but is well worth considering.

Branding Bottom Line:
Gatorade makes us sweat. Again.

Brand: Gatorade
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here - it is the second-to-last spot entitled “Gatorade Precision”
Target: Performance-seekers
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David

Description:
Several great moments in sports history are replayed with alternate endings. Michael Jordan’s last minute jump shot in the playoffs bounces off the backboard, Oakland scores a home run, Joe Montana’s touchdown pass is off-target. The voiceover says, “If you’re a fraction off, it can change everything.” Then we see two athletes hooked up to instruments in a research space as the voiceover continues, ” and in the lab where Gatorade scientists test and retest athletes so we know exactly what their bodies demand. Precision counts - out there and in here.” The three sports moments then replay with the historically correct endings and we get a final shot of the ripped athlete in the lab and the spot closes with the Gatorade logo.

What Works:
As Darren Rovell notes in his book, “First in Thirst” on Gatorade marketing, the genius of Gatorade’s marketing crew (at Quaker Oats) is that they recognize that no matter who drinks it, the brand positioning has to focus on serious athletes, “Although the amount of incidental usage (people drinking Gatorade who are not working out) is increasing, Quaker officials discovered early on that the mystique will be broken if the brand is at all steered away from sports.” In other words, Gatorade marketing works when it shows great athletes getting better, not invigorated couch potatoes.

This spot does an excellent job of defining the end benefit of a performance drink like Gatorade against the general charge that it will make very little difference to many of those who drink it (many don’t work out long enough for it to be of any benefit, for example). The end benefit is winning and the permission to believe is that in elite-level sports, the smallest fraction of performance matters. The golf equipment market has a long history of showing that average-performing sports enthusiasts will go to absurd lengths to get the last bit of competitive edge with their equipment. Gatorade is offering the same experience for a much lower price.

This spot’s novel “reality turned inside out” is a very good tool to show the importance that small differences make on the field. What’s nice here is that this gee-whiz technology is used solidly to reinforce the brand positioning, not for it’s own sake. The use of Michael Jordan early on in the spot also helps tie this message more ownably to Gatorade.

What Doesn’t:
Even this Advertising Blog had to scratch its head for a second when first viewing this spot. Didn’t Jordan make that shot? Do I remember it right? Although this double-take is the tool that this spot uses to grab the viewer’s attention, it is disorienting and caused us to miss the message the first time around. As a high-spending, long-running campaign, this may not pose as much of an issue, but we brand folks prefer our message to be clean and clear at first glance.

A smaller concern is the branding of this spot. While Gatorade’s name is mentioned (and we see the ubiquitous green fluid) just under halfway through this spot, it is not until the last five seconds that we actually see the brand. Although the brand positioning and use of Michael Jordan make this ownably and uniquely a Gatorade spot, we would have preferred to see stronger visual branding of Gatorade earlier in the spot.

Branding Bottom Line:
We’re still trying to get our TiVo to give us a Gatorade version of the last Jets game.