Gatorade’s new advertising campaign can only be described as an attempt to slim down their customer base. Customers were shown being turned away in a string of prank adverts if they weren’t actively sweating.
These adverts comedically reinforce Gatorade’s campaign tagline of needing to “perspire to acquire, subscribe to imbibe and drip it to sip it.” While this prank tactic worked well for Gatorade, it would largely only be successful for other big brands. It certainly wouldn’t appeal to customer loyalty and relationship marketing. Most customers asked to exercise just to buy a bottle of Gatorade would likely say “don’t sweat it” and pick up a Sprite instead.
So why did Gatorade insult and turn down customers? One reason may have been the potential to become a viral success. Prank videos are a YouTube classic and so Gatorade could have easily predicted the campaigns success. The humourous aspect to these adverts further propelled their success.
So while turning away customers would not work for smaller businesses relying on relationship marketing, it works very well for beverage giant Gatorade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIZ7tP7C1FU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIr2kw2rwAc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PZfc5EkzZw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUyRPlzVnf4
Watch all the prank videos here.