How Did Gatorade Get So Big?

this video is brought to you by audible click the link in the description or text co MP anym an-2 500 500 to get a free audiobook and a 30-day free trial [Music] it's becoming the age-old question Gatorade or water which is better clearly its Gatorade since it has electrolytes duh it'd be nice if the answer were that simple I'll explore that question a little more throughout the video but what I really want to focus on is Gatorade itself this is something that started as a drink intended to help one specific college football team the Florida Gators yet today it's Gatorade we all know Gatorade they're the official sports drink of the NBA and the NFL and the MLB and the NHL and NASCAR practically all the major American sports leagues it's become a symbol of victory they completely dominate their market who else even compares Powerade please so how did they do it how did Gatorade get this big it's been a progression it didn't happen overnight it happened over a period of more than 50 years within these 50 years there were 3 specific events that I would say we're all vital to Gatorade success without any one of them I don't think it would be quite what it is today for the first one let's go back to that 1965 Florida Gators team it's hot in Florida the team had long exhausting practices in the summer followed by long exhausting games the players would get tired really tired the scientists over at the University of Florida had some ideas about how to help the issue here's their thought process the players lose water through sweating so drinking water solves the hydration problem but they also lose sodium when they sweat so in the same way they should be replacing that sodium their blood sugar drops to maybe they should eat some sugar theirs lucien was to blend salt and sugar and everything else that runs low by the end of the game into a delicious lemon flavored drink that's what all the electrolytes are by the way the idea was that if the players maintain proper levels of all these chemicals they wouldn't get tired as easily they'd have more endurance and in general have a little competitive edge over their opponent when I say it like this it all seems to make perfect sense and it really looked like it worked with the introduction of Gatorade the team got better they had a much better season less injuries they won the Orange Bowl that year the team even became famous for doing well late in games right when their opponents were starting to run low on electrolytes I'd say if you were looking simply at correlation Gatorade looks like a miracle drink but if you're concerned with causation it's hard to believe their success probably had something to do with the team or the players or the coaches rather than what they were drinking to say it was all because of the Gatorade is a little crazy even if it was doing what it was supposed to do it's just one of many factors but either way the Gatorade was generally thought to be the reason for their improvement because of this there was a high demand for it the demand was much higher than a group of University scientists could provide the scientists sold Gatorade to a company called Stokely Van Camp the details of the sale are a bit of a mess the scientists developed the formula in their own time but using the school's facilities but a large percentage of their funding came from government grants it's a whole complicated legal issue but the result of it is that the school ended up with the percentage of the royalties to this day the University of Florida gets money from each bottle of Gatorade sold since it's been happening for forty five years and since Gatorade sells a lot of bottles these days this has been a very good thing for the university so that's my first event the Gatorade brain being sold to the Stokely VanCamp come it was invented and popularized at the school but it's this company that was able to make it available to the public in a real way a different way to think about this is that if the Florida Gators hadn't done so well that year we probably wouldn't have Gatorade today there wouldn't have been demand for it the Stokely VanCamp people wouldn't have wanted it and it would have never left the University the VanCamp deal happened in 1967 they spent 16 years doing good things for the Gatorade name they made it available to people they brought awareness to it it was much bigger in 1983 than it was in 1967 I used that specific year of 1983 because that's when the next big thing happened the Stokely VanCamp company was acquired by Quaker Oats it was a big acquisition at the time Gatorade became a significant part of Vann camps business but there was much more to it their most known for their canned foods specifically baked beans similar to the deal before Gatorade was put in the hands of people who could do much more with it as soon as Quaker Oats became the owner big things started happening gatorade blew up in the 1980s it became an international product it was sold in Canada Europe South America Asia but it grew domestically as well a big part of the domestic growth was due to a celebrity endorsement possibly one of the most popular and effective celebrity endorsements of all time in August of 1991 Quaker Oats paid Michael Jordan 13.5 million dollars to endorse Gatorade for the next 10 years any basketball fans could back me up in the comments when I say few athletes have ever been more popular than Michael Jordan was in the 1990s locking in that endorsement for a product like Gatorade was a perfect move if you've ever heard the phrase be like Mike it was even the name of a movie well it comes from this campaign [Music] growing up in the 90s and well since my name is Mike I heard this constantly so that was the second event the acquisition by Quaker Oats they were a large company that poured their resources into growing the brand bringing it to other countries hiring the biggest athlete in the world to endorse it these are things that helped Gatorade through the 1980s and 1990s Quaker Oats made the world aware of it Gatorade was much bigger in 2001 and then it was in 1983 I say 2001 because that's when the third event happened it's just going to be me telling a very similar story for a third time yet again Gatorade was put into the hands of someone who could do more with it this time Pepsi and this year Pepsi bought all of Quaker Oats in addition to Gatorade the deal included Captain Crunch and Jemima Quaker Oats makes a lot of things you probably didn't realize but now Pepsi owns all of it they have the resources needed to further grow the Gatorade brand they have the knowledge experience when it comes to further advancing something like a sports drink Pepsi is someone who can do it and they have been Gatorade is much larger now than it was in 2001 in 2010 they went through a complete rebranding it's now sold in three phases prime perform and recover meant to be drunk before during or after the workout or activity it was a bold move changing something that's been mostly unchanged for so long that's always a risk plus mostly taking the product name off the label that's something you don't see often they're relying on the customer recognizing the bottle shape and the G with the lightning bolt in it I suppose but I see no evidence that had hurt them in any way they made the changes eight years ago and they haven't looked back the journey of Gatorade reminds me of those fish that keep growing to the size of their tank the University was the little tank it couldn't grow much more with them but then it kept upgrading to bigger tanks until now it's with Pepsi and that's the biggest tank available there's not much further it can grow and remember how I mentioned Powerade in the beginning well Powerade is owned by the coca-cola company meaning the battle between Gatorade and Powerade is really just part of the war between Coke and Pepsi I would have never thought that the most recent market share data I could find is from 2015 but it shows Gatorade controls 77% of the market and Powerade controls 20% showing us that these two control the entire industry but also Gatorade is dominating 77% is a massive percentage but keep in mind Gatorade started the industry it used to have a 100 percent market share back when the market was smaller I just stated some statistics to convince you of something that I'm sure you already knew Gatorade is beating Powerade my point is that this round goes to Pepsi getting back to the original question is Gatorade superior to water on the side of Gatorade it does have electrolytes that we sometimes joke about but they are things we need on the side of water there's no sugar nothing bad for you it's just water I'm not an authority to answer the question but the popular belief confirmed through many sources including LIVESTRONG and Men's Fitness seems to be that it depends on the duration and the intensity of the workout if you're just jogging around the block you're not going to be low on electrolytes so no need for Gatorade now if you're playing a full length football game you'll probably start to run low and could probably benefit from some Gatorade we've had a bit of a fitness theme on this channel for the last couple of weeks and it makes me want to bring up the topic of new year's resolutions one more time which is good because it ties in perfectly with my sponsor audible who happens to be the leading provider of premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the internet I downloaded a book from them called the power of habit and I just think it'd be great for anyone trying to keep their resolution it talks about the impact that habits can have and how even the smallest change in habit could leak into other parts of your life in a way that you wouldn't believe and thanks to audible you can download it for free they're offering a one month free trial that includes a free audiobook that you get to keep forever the power of habit comes highly recommended by me but if for whatever reason it's not for you you can exchange it for something else audible has a wide variety of books so you shouldn't have much trouble finding something new to take advantage of this offers simply go to audible.com slash company man I've linked it in the description to make it easy for you or you can text company man that's Co MP anym an-2 500 500 that'll get you a free audiobook and the 30 day free trial but before you do that let me know in the comments any thoughts you have about Gatorade it's a unique rise to popularity that's highlighted by three distinct events all of which were transfers of ownership it's a journey that proves the importance of ownership and the power of larger companies as the companies got larger they were more able to influence customers also if there's any athletes watching this please share any experiences you've had concerning the water vs Gatorade debate I'd like to hear what you have to say data rate not only quenches your thirst better it tastes better too thank you for watching you [Music]

Channel: Company Man

Views: 995,125

Rating: 4.915153 out of 5

Keywords: Gatorade, Acquisition, Sports Drink, Powerade, NBA, NFL, NHL, NASCAR

Id: _pbyKm9jYVg

Length: 12min 24sec (744 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/shmoove_cwiminal]

Gator-ade....

[u/PoorEdgarDerby]

That explains all the Powerade sold at UTK.

[u/SaintMaya]

I used to work a suite over for Dr. Cade, this was long after the invention of Gatorade. He was still chasing the dream, one he could profit by.

[u/SquelchMePlz]

TIL Florida's main exports are meth and diabetes water.