BodyArmor endorser Mike Trout douses teammate Kole Calhoun after he singled in the game-winning run ... [+]
Abilene Christian and Gardner-Webb are a pair of upstarts making their first appearances in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year. Their March Madness stays are likely to be short as a 15 seed and 16 seed respectively and facing powerhouses Kentucky and Virginia in their opening round games.
But another upstart will have a much longer run in the tourney, guaranteed to make it to the National Championship Game on April 8. BodyArmor sports drink takes over from Powerade this year as the official sports drink of the NCAA Tournament. The drink will be on the sidelines and locker rooms for all games, and its logo will adorn all coolers, cups and water bottles. The deal signed in November covers a total of 90 NCAA championships across sports.
The brand will use March Madness to launch its largest marketing campaign, which was created by NBA legend Kobe Bryant, who is the third largest investor in the company. The commercial spot running during the tourney features NBA All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and James Harden using a rotary phone and typewriter, respectively, in a nod to items that were once helpful.
“We are speaking to the outdated messages that have been used in the past,” says Bryant about the campaign. “Those things were all good, but there is a newer way to do things, and that is the tonality of the campaign. Thank you to Gatorade. We appreciate your services. We’ll take it from here.”
BodyArmor is taking aim at industry giant Gatorade head on and markets itself as a better-for-you sports drink for the next generation. The “Thanks” campaign launched last year included ad spots written and co-directed by Bryant. The BodyArmor ads took humorous shots at PepsiCo-owned Gatorade with Kristaps Porzingis working with carrier pigeons and Skylar Diggins-Smith doing jazz aerobics. The tag line is always the same: “Thanks, Gatorade. We'll take it from here.”
“The goal is to be the number one sports drink in 2025. The dream is to be on every sideline, college, high school and pro,” says founder Mike Repole, who also cofounded Vitaminwater- and Smartwater-maker Glaceau, which Coca-Cola purchased for $4.1 billion in 2007.
Repole and Coca-Cola are together again after the beverage giant invested $300 million in the company last year for 15% of the company in a deal that valued BodyArmor at $2 billion and Bryant's stake at roughly $200 million.
Coca-Cola, which owns Powerade, still holds the sponsorship rights to NCAA championships, but BodyArmor sublicenses the sports drink component of the sponsorship, with Coca-Cola continuing to use the events to promote its non-sports drink brands.
In addition to the ad campaign, BodyArmor will host its own bracket challenge where fans can fill out an NCAA tournament bracket and compete against BodyArmor endorsers like Harden, Mitchell and Mike Trout.
BodyArmor’s retail sales doubled in 2018 to $400 million, and Repole expects them to nearly double again this year. The brand's market share has risen from 1% in 2016 to a current 8.6%, according to Nielsen. Gatorade still commands more than 70% of the market, but Coca-Cola will add new distribution capabilities for BodyArmor and access to potential channels like hospitals, high schools and airports.
“I think Coca-Cola is going to really accelerate our growth play,” says Repole.
