With the total number of US mobile gamers rising from 81m in 2011 to 106m in 2012, we recognized the size and opportunity to reach Gatorade’s 13-24 year old audience. However, the chances for a brand to integrate into popular mobile games were rare and didn’t offer the ability to affect actual gameplay in a brand relevant way. The most common way for advertisers to be involved in a game was through simple banners or incentivized ads, such as giving players extra points or credits if they completed an action or watched a brand’s video.

The “Bolt!” mobile game, which was still being built, allowed us to work closely with the game developer to integrate the product into gameplay in a way that assisted and fueled players in the game, emulating Gatorade’s mission to assist and fuel athletes in real life.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) restrictions for non-Olympic sponsors, such as Gatorade, prohibited advertising featuring Olympic athletes during the duration of the Olympic games, but the mobile game, launched before the IOC blackout, allowed the audience to interact with Gatorade and Usain Bolt during the world’s biggest sports event while staying within IOC regulations.

To bring fans and athletes alike inside the NFL experience experience, Gatorade and NFL Films partnered with the top 11 NFL rookies throughout their first season to create 20 original, branded video episodes chronicling their journey - we called it “Everything to Prove.”

“Everything to Prove” provided an insider’s view of the usually unseen trials, tribulations, and victories that drove the rookies’ performance both on the field and off. Gatorade was seamlessly integrated into the story, providing nutritional and performance support to the players along the way.

The promotion and distribution strategy took the insider experience to a new level through industry and brand first integrations within Hulu.com and Xbox Live respectively.

Within those platforms, we built out experiential environments including interactive bonus footage, unique backstory content and training insight from each of the 11 featured players’ point of view, bringing the audience even closer to their heroes.

The game has been downloaded 2.3m times and 87m games have been played, with the majority (73%) of players within Gatorade’s key demographic segment of 13-24 year olds. Most importantly, the 820m Gatorade brand interactions drive home the messaging that Gatorade helps you perform better than water.

Gatorade’s deep integration into gameplay success, with timely social media tweets and posts garnering millions of earned and owned impressions (at no cost), around an athlete who is known the world over for peak performance, resulted in almost a billion brand interactions.