Edited by Geoffrey P. LantosFirst in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon

Citation

Chapman, K.J. (2006), "Edited by Geoffrey P. LantosFirst in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 280-281. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420610679665

Many people are amazed how the Nike brand and its ubiquitous swoosh have become part of the fabric of our culture. However, over the years many would argue that Nike has diluted some of its brand equity with consumers by spreading the brand across such a diverse array of categories. What does Nike stand for today? What is the Nike product? Golf? Sweats? Shoes? Headbands? General athletic apparel? Nike moved its brand from tangible identification with a particular sport and product, to a powerful, yet intangible icon of sport attitude.

Another powerhouse brand within sports zeroed in on one objective, to be “First in Thirst.” First in Thirst: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon is the incredible saga of how Gatorade's single‐mindedness “… has led to an 80 percent market share throughout the better part of the drink's existence” (p. 4). In fact, “Today, more than 90 billion ounces of Gatorade are sold in the United States each year, which means that approximately 7.6 million bottles of Gatorade, or 88 bottles per second, are sold in America every day” (p. 7).

The Gatorade story is presented over the course of nine chapters. The chapters take the reader on a journey, beginning with Gatorade's development for the University of Florida Gator's football team in 1965, to its purchase and growth with Quaker Oats.

The first chapter, “Sweat in a bottle,” explains how Gatorade was developed and first tested on University of Florida football players. However, the coach did not want to risk any star players and only allowed the drink to be consumed by freshman. This fact is rather humorous, but also illustrates the seriousness with which coaches and players take anything that might influence performance.

Chapter 2, “The mystique is born,” gives the reader a glance of guerilla marketing taking place in 1966. The developer of Gatorade, Dr Robert Cade, decided that he should give the drink away in the hopes that eventually people will buy it. Dr Cade also made a deal with Jerry Quarry, a top, heavy weight boxer, wherein Jerry would get the drink for free for promoting the product.

In chapter 3, “From field to shelves,” the reader learns how in 1967, Gatorade was purchased by Stokely Van‐Camp and shortly thereafter Gatorade became the official sports drink of the NFL. The contract with the NFL specifically stated that NFL teams would put coolers on their sidelines for every game. All this for a mere $25,000. In inflation‐adjusted dollars this is about $142,300, illustrating that even in today's dollars this promotion was an incredible deal. In contrast, in 1998, Gatorade paid $130 million for a six‐year contract, and in 2004 paid $500 million to the NFL to own the sidelines for another eight years.

We also learn that in the summer of 1968, Stokely Van‐Camp sent out 31,000 samples of Gatorade to athletic programs around the country and started to roll out Gatorade in supermarkets. That's right, the epidemic of the green coolers with the lightening bolt seen on the sidelines of athletic events began nearly 40 years ago. This clearly illustrates how for a brand to become part of the cultural lexicon, it takes decades of persistence.

Chapter 4, “Wrestling over Gatorade,” is a brief deviation into the struggle for control of the Gatorade brand among the University of Florida, Dr Cade, and Stokely Van‐Camp. A five‐year legal battle unfolded as the parties wrestled over who should own the brand. This chapter was a bit tedious, but does explore the personal and legal entanglements that can occur as a brand grows and becomes profitable.

As the Gatorade cooler and cups became commonplace on the sidelines, a new ritual of winning also materialized, the Gatorade shower. Chapter 5, the “Tipping point,” gives the reader a behind‐the‐scenes understanding of how for “over two decades, the dumping of the Gatorade cooler on the coach has become a tradition at every level of sports” (p. 77). The chapter explores some of the more infamous Gatorade dunks and explains how Gatorade leveraged this spontaneous marketing opportunity.

In chapter 6, “Be like Mike,” we learn that Gatorade America was reluctant to use star athletes as part of its marketing campaign. The American marketing strategy was to put money into advertising to promote a message about the brand while having few athlete endorsers. At the same time, Gatorade Europe had 25 star athletes on its payroll. Gatorade America learned from its European colleagues and started pursuing Michael Jordan. In 1991, Gatorade signed a ten‐year, $14 million deal to have Michael Jordan be their product spokesperson. The “Be like Mike” campaign was born, and soon thereafter the slogan “… became part of pop culture  … ” (p. 110).

One of the challenges of success is that it breeds copycats and brings out the competition. In this case, Gatorade's success brought out two behemoths, Coca‐Cola and Pepsi. Chapter 7, “We're going to war,” explores how Gatorade not only survived the onslaught by Coca‐Cola and Pepsi, but also flourished. It is particularly interesting to learn that at first Gatorade and Coca‐Cola were considering a strategic partnership and when the deal broke down, they became fierce competitors.

Chapter 8 “Gatorade rules,” is by far the most relevant section to anyone looking for guidance on how to create a superbrand. Marketing practitioners, marketing educators, and students will find a lot of value in this chapter. The rules include:

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  Make sure your product, service or brand is unique, and know what makes it unique.

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  Never stop researching the marketplace.

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  Identify drivers of the business and take care of them.

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  Never stop working to get your next consumer.

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  Packaging counts.

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  Learn from your mistakes.

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  Seek to connect emotion and passion to the brand.

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  Stay disciplined.

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  Form smart strategic alliances.

Finally, chapter 9, “Gatorade critics,” addresses the numerous critics who claim that Gatorade does not really benefit mainstream athletes. Medical studies have shown that the Gatorade formula is most likely to benefit athletes that compete at the élite levels of a sport. However, as most of us know, marketing is about perceptions, not reality. Let us face it, most golfers cannot really tell the difference between the $159.99 driver and the $529.99 driver. Yet, many golfers are more than happy to pay for the $529.99 driver endorsed by Tiger Woods in the fanciful hope the club will allow them to have a 330‐yard drive.

The author, Darren Rovell, has an obvious love for football and passion for the Gatorade story, and although this may seem perfect for the premise of the book, it actually hurts the narrative. The book has too many football anecdotes and sports trivia at the expense of focusing on the brand's story. This causes the book to lose focus. At many points the book wanders a bit to tell a sport's story and then has to make its way back to its main premise. Another distraction is that the book has one too many grandiose generalities about Gatorade such as, “Gatorade has become one of the most perfect products in American consumer history” (p. 4). (Silly me, I thought bananas were the perfect product.) Quaker Oats certainly did a great job of marketing Gatorade, but that does not make it a perfect product. At many points the book has a tendency to meander making it a bit of a slow and frustrating read. However, when addressing the main story, Rovell does a good job expressing how Gatorade became such a dominant brand and part of our culture.

Anyone who considers him/herself a student of marketing will find the Gatorade story fascinating. Practitioners and marketing educators will better understand what it takes to develop and implement a brand strategy. First in Thirst is essentially a lengthy case study documenting how a persistent marketing strategy can pay incredible returns. Marketing educators could easily use the book as a way to help students explore concepts such as the diffusion of innovation, guerilla marketing tactics, public relations, the power of word‐of‐mouth, the importance of distribution, the strategic importance of sales efforts to opinion leaders and distributors, the power of celebrity endorsers, and certainly, the strategic importance of brand equity.