You know that neighbor who burns through new pairs of running shoes faster than you use a tank of gas? Those friends who spent more on their bikes than you did on your car? They are endurance athletes and they’re high-income and influential. They do exhaustive research on their equipment purchases but are confused about what to put in their bodies to improve their performance. And they don’t think your brand understands them at all. That’s where Gatorade found themselves this time last year.

Gatorade’s goal was to engage these skeptical endurance athletes, become their go-to nutrition resource and prove an iconic, mainstream brand had products specific to their needs. The bridge to get us there was 'Inside Endurance', a campaign centred on an original web series starring amateur athlete and reality television star, Ryan Sutter, as he worked with the Gatorade Sports Science Institute (GSSI) to figure out how he could improve his performance through nutrition. Gatorade’s science and products became Ryan’s x-factor and helped him chase a goal all endurance athletes have in common - to continually improve their personal best - while the audience followed the drama across 12 episodes.The web series was complemented by a PR campaign that drove a steady stream of media coverage and continuous digital engagement. With a budget a fraction the size of most ad campaigns, the program drove more than 80m media impressions, 150,000 video views and a significant 8% increase in endurance athlete social media engagement with the Gatorade brand.

We followed Sutter for more than 4 months as he trained for and competed in races across the country and also went inside GSSI labs to show how the tests Ryan performed informed him about sports nutrition. The resulting content drove the campaign and was strategically distributed to surround the endurance athlete: - Earned: Sutter appeared in top outlets in every market he raced in, on endurance blogs and mainstream entertainment media.- Shared: Information on the series was pushed out through Twitter, and a Facebook widget was created as a sharable content hub.- Owned: The series appeared across all Gatorade’s channels, including a special G.com hub.

- Paid: By leveraging existing paid partnerships with endurance community favorites the series was placed on sites that this community trusts. The campaign ran according to the original plan.

Program results include:Raised consideration for Gatorade as a complete nutrition brand and partner:- More than 150,000 views of the web series with 58% of viewers watching entire episodes, an above average level of engagement for a web series.- Endurance athletes following the Gatorade Twitter handle increased by 8% and has been sustained since the campaign completed.- Led to growth of 18-24-year-old endurance athletes on the Gatorade Facebook page - increasing from 38% to 43% throughout the program.

Raised awareness on how sports nutrition can improve performance:- Sutter’s performance progressed along with the series - he beat his 70.3 triathlon goal by 2 minutes and marathon record by over 2 minutes.- Sutter appeared in 134 top media outlets, garnering more than 81m media impressions.- 15.9m Facebook impressions, more than 5,800 total episode shares on Facebook, 1,400 total tweets and 92,800 widget impressions.