Powerade Launches College Football NIL Ad Campaign With 60 Players
Early in 2023, Powerade tweaked its formula and gave its bottles a new look to highlight the drink’s 50% more electrolytes than Gatorade Thirst Quencher. Now the Coca-Cola-owned brand is launching its first-ever national college football marketing campaign to showcase the changes.
Powerade has teamed up with more than 60 college football players for NIL campaigns to promote its brand this fall. The TV portion will launch at the highly anticipated Sept. 3 showdown between Florida State and LSU; it features stars at five top-25 programs, including FSU’s Jared Verse, LSU’s Jayden Daniels, Georgia’s Malaki Starks, USC’s Mario Williams and Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson. Verse is projected to be a top-five pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
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“We want to change the articulation that we’re communicating to the consumer,” Thomas Gargiulo, BodyArmor Sports Nutrition CMO, said in a phone interview. “College sports is the perfect stage for us.”
Powerade was folded into the BodyArmor Sports Nutrition umbrella of brands in 2023, following Coca-Cola’s acquisition of BodyArmor in late 2021 at an $8 billion valuation.
Powerade has been the official sports drink partner of March Madness since 2010, except for 2019 when BodyArmor was the sponsor. It has sideline rights and pouring rights at more than 25 schools, including the five top programs with players featured in the TV campaign.
BodyArmor’s marketing strategy is focused largely on pro sports, with Joe Burrow, CeeDee Lamb and Christian McCaffrey as endorsers in the NFL, as well as Sabrina Ionescu, Alex Morgan, Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young outside of football. It is also the official sports drink of MLS.
“We really jumped in feet first into NIL and leveraged a lot of the key learnings from BodyArmor with our pro athletes,” Gargiulo said. “NIL is a great opportunity for us to find new and different ways to connect with each team’s fan base.”
BodyArmor and Powerade face an uphill climb to tackle Gatorade, which has been the market leader for decades. Last year, Gatorade had a 69% market share in the U.S., while BodyArmor (14.5%) and Powerade (14%) ranked as the next two biggest brands, according to Euromonitor.
Coca-Cola wants to be the No. 1 sports drink company within five years, but the legacy beverages all face challenges from market conditions and upstart brands, particularly Prime, developed by Logan Paul and KSI. In its 2023 SEC filings, PepsiCo said Gatorade volume in North America had a “high-single-digit decrease” in both the first and second quarters. Coca-Cola’s sports drink volumes fell 1% in the first quarter and 3% during the next three months.
There are some green shoots with Powerade, as the brand has gained market share and posted 13 straight weeks of year-over-year growth, according to Nielsen.
“Over the last few years, the brand has been in rough shape,” Gargiulo said regarding Powerade. “We're starting to see improvements in share and brand health across the board, and we are excited with the results that we're seeing; it's far exceeding our expectations.”
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