Cool! Oh, never mind...
posted by Jeffrey Klineman at 1:27 PM
Because we're lame enough to do so, we got all excited this morning about a release from the folks over at Power Bar that they had developed a “beverage system” for extreme athletes. Not that we like Power Bars, mind you, but we do like strong brands and Power Bar has shown a lot of staying power.
But it turns out that the beverage system is a powder; that’s too bad, because something like Power Bar is a real threat to the Gatorade juggernaut, which, we’ve made it clear in other writing, can only be toppled from outside the sports drink category.
We don’t think Power Bar could do that toppling on its own, but it presents an interesting idea: a brand that has credibility among performance athletes and armchair athletes alike (much like Gatorade itself) moving to a sports drink platform might be the most easily conceived Gatorade competitor.
The fact is, the sports drink category, which has grown fast and furious because of Gatorade’s popularity, is in need of a shakeup, and most of the competition out there either isn’t well-funded, or tends to rely on nerdy studies that lose the typical Gatorade drinker’s attention after the first sentence.
We think vitaminwater perform has a solid shot at peeling off some of Gatorade’s market share at some point, because it’s a powerful brand that overlaps many Gatorade consumers. But Power Bars are even closer to that demographic. If they made a strong move to the hoop, we’d watch it closely.
But it turns out that the beverage system is a powder; that’s too bad, because something like Power Bar is a real threat to the Gatorade juggernaut, which, we’ve made it clear in other writing, can only be toppled from outside the sports drink category.
We don’t think Power Bar could do that toppling on its own, but it presents an interesting idea: a brand that has credibility among performance athletes and armchair athletes alike (much like Gatorade itself) moving to a sports drink platform might be the most easily conceived Gatorade competitor.
The fact is, the sports drink category, which has grown fast and furious because of Gatorade’s popularity, is in need of a shakeup, and most of the competition out there either isn’t well-funded, or tends to rely on nerdy studies that lose the typical Gatorade drinker’s attention after the first sentence.
We think vitaminwater perform has a solid shot at peeling off some of Gatorade’s market share at some point, because it’s a powerful brand that overlaps many Gatorade consumers. But Power Bars are even closer to that demographic. If they made a strong move to the hoop, we’d watch it closely.
5 Comments:
Any comment on Cytomax? They were one of the original powder endurance drink products, and recently entered the ready-to-drink retail market.
I agree with you - Gatorade will be challenged rather sooner than later. But Power Bar is Nestle...
Funding is important but it also needs entrepreneurial spirit...
The positioning of the vitaminwater is different. I haven't seen anybody on the sports fields drinking vitaminwater.
I would not be surprised if the next big sports drink comes from a dairy company and is distributed by Budweiser. The beverage world is changing.
Dairy companies: I have ideas….
Isn't Gatorade trying to get ahead of the curve with Gatorade Endurance? Mainstream distribution plus specialty sport advertising (bike and running magazines for example).
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