Marketing Strategy for Gatorade Star

Marketing Strategy for Gatorade Star 

Executive Summary

Gatorade’s success has spanned over 50 years at this point. This is in part due to Gatorade’s early arrival in the sports drink market. As the first to enter the market, it was able to revolutionize the way consumers went about hydration when taking part in sports. However, this success is also due to Gatorade’s very successful marketing strategies that it has used over the years.

Gatorade has grown tremendously as a company from its 1965 inception at the University of Florida. In 1983, Quaker Oats bought Gatorade from Stokely for $220 million dollars. After then Gatorade owned the sport drink market. In December 2000, PepsiCo

There are many things that Gatorade has done well. This mainly includes Gatorade’s use of professional athletes, teams, and leagues as tools for marketing their products. These tools are all indispensable for Gatorade because they are what the company was built on.

Market Strategy Focus

     By creating a strategic focus, organizations are able to develop a clear strategy for growth and measure the effectiveness of the adopted strategy.  By analyzing strengths and opportunities and leveraging those against potential threats and the company’s weaknesses, Gatorade can formulate strategic plans to accomplish goals and objectives.

     Gatorade research & development team continuously work to understand the nutritional needs of the athletes and come with such products that will help them in improving their performances, Gatorade now focusing on the pre-teen from 7 - 11 years who are involved in regular physical activity, and they can be professional athletes. The parents of this market interested to maintaining a healthy lifestyle to their children and have a mid to high family income.

In order to appeal to the market, Gatorade recently came out with a new product called Gatorade Stars provides the pre-teen with several benefits obtained from features of the beverage.  The features of Gatorade Stars include the ability to hydrate like the original Gatorade plus an additional vitamin, less sugar and calories for kids aged 7 - 11 who play minor league sports, grassroots, before and after game or when they're out playing.

The new product works in three phases. The first phase is designed to be taken before an intense workout or game and provides carbohydrates, performance fuel, and energy. The second phase is designed to rehydrate, refuel and replenish lost electrolytes and carbohydrates during a game or workout.  The final phase provides the body with protein to help rebuild muscles and to prepare the body for the next day’s work out or game without any risk to the children.

The new Gatorade product (Gatorade Stars) designed to be easy-grip plastic bottles, for small-mouth, in favored kid flavors berry, watermelon and strawberry (colored shocking blue, green and red, respectively).

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Marketing Goals and Objectives

        It is vital that marketing goals and objectives align with the overall mission and vision of the company (Ferrell & Hartline, 2014).  The first step in determining the marketing goals and objectives for Gatorade Gold is to examine what PepsiCo envisions for the company and how they are going to get there.

PepsiCo Mission: - Our mission is to be the world’s premiere consumer Products Company focused on convenient foods and beverages.  We seek to produce financial rewards to investors as we provide opportunities for growth and enrichment to our employees, our business partners and the communities in which we operate.  In everything we do, we strive for honesty, fairness, and integrity.  (PepsiCo, n.d., para. 1)

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