Gatorade invented the sports drink category in 1967 and dominated the market ever since. Given the brand's success, it was no surprise that the Coca Cola Company entered the marketplace with an isotonic beverage of their own; Powerade. In late 2001, prompted by Gatorade's continued strong performance, rival Powerade made its most aggressive push yet, introducing new products, redesigning packaging, lowering pricing, dramatically increasing advertising spending and significantly increasing availability and distribution.

Together with the client, we tapped into advertising to leverage the emotional bond between the brand and its core franchise consumers, as well as highlight Gatorade's unique brand history. This was accomplished through several TV and print executions within the award-winning “Is It In You?” campaign. The cornerstone ad in the 2002 pool explained Gatorade's origin on the athletic field of play at the University of Florida.

In 2002, the Gatorade brand continued to show strong gains in consumer awareness and relevance while maintaining an extremely high level of likeability. Further, through June of the following year, Gatorade enjoyed 12% growth and limited share gains by Powerade; returning to mid-80% levels.

Success like this threatens to make “Is It In You?” a rhetorical question.