Monday, October 22, 2007

 
Gatorade to Make a Tiger Woods Sports Drink

This was announced last week. According to the press release on Tiger's website, Gatorade and Tiger Woods will work together to develop a new line of sports drinks called Gatorade Tiger which will be available from March 2008.

So while most successful athletes simply get paid lots of money to endorse an already existing sports drink or soft drink, Tiger Woods gets an entirely new sports drink made specially for him. That's like getting Mobil to make a new engine oil specially suited to Michael Schumacher's style of driving.

Also according to the press release, Tiger has already undergone a "sweat analysis testing with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute" to develop a sports drink specially tailored to meet Tiger's "hydration, recovery, nutrition and energy needs."

So this new drink is going to be specially suited for Tiger Woods' own body? Which means it could be more unsuitable for anyone else's body than a generic sports drink like 100plus or Pocari? And what the hell is the "Gatorade Sports Science Institute" anyway? Gatorade has been in existence for decades. So after developing the standard drink, what was this alleged "Sports Science Institute" doing? Just waiting around till Tiger became famous enough so that they had something new to do like develop a special drink for him?

Maybe other famous athletes should get the "Gatorade Sports Science Institute" to develop specially tailored drinks for them too. Although in the case of John Daly, I think that Budweiser might be closer to his personal "hydration, recovery, nutrition and energy needs" than Gatorade.

And finally, also from the press release, it appears that "Gatorade Tiger will be available in three new and refreshing flavours inspired and selected by Woods (cherry blend, citrus blend and grape)".

First of all, what's so "new" about citrus blend and grape? Gatorade has had those flavours for years! But more importantly, if they've already done Tiger's "sweat analysis testing" (yuck!) and Tiger's already chosen the flavours he wants, why do they need to wait till March 2008 before launching it? It's just a drink! It's based on Gatorade, Tiger's given his input and you've selected the flavours. What are the remaining 5 months for? It's not a bloody iPhone!

Anyway, given Tiger's near cult following (especially among golfers), you can expect every golf club in the world to start stocking and selling this drink like hotcakes come March 2008. I'm already in talks with some of my friends in the F&B business to see if I can get a small share of the distribution business for this drink in South East Asia. We're also discussing which other stars we can pair with a new flavour of some existing food or drink to boost sales for a few years. The personalities of the stars and the drinks must match though. Like maybe Roger Federer and Ice Cool Evian water or the All Blacks and fluffy pavlova that collapses under pressure or England's goalkeeper Paul Robinson and particularly holey Swiss cheese. I'll let you know if anything gets finalised.

Comments:
it's all nothing but a marketing ploy to get people to fork their hard-earned money out of their pockets and line the already overflowing pockets of the famous and rich--i guarantee you won't be seeing me with a Gatorade Tiger in my hands.
 
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