Cannes Lions

POWERADE

MADRE, Buenos Aires / COCA-COLA / 2012

Overview

Entries

Credits

Overview

Description

Powerade is the underdog in the sports drink category. The challenge of this campaign was to reach the US Latino baseball fans and the good news was that the brand had a deal with Hanley Ramirez.At that moment, the interesting thing was that Hanley was injured and his performance was far from the peak of his career.Because of this, fans and journalists started to question Hanley’s desire for the game and his ability to come back.Still, Powerade decided to support Hanley during these difficult times, having him answer every piece of criticism where they deserve it: in the game.

Execution

The campaign was launched with the TV commercial, and with online content exclusively through Hanley's personal social network accounts (Twitter and Facebook). This meant that he himself was personally taking Powerade's message to both his fans and his critics.

With this we created a huge conversation in the social media and sports websites spontaneously picked up the discussion and spot because of it's controversial nature. It was the people who shared and blew up the message with either their support for Hanley or their criticism. But they weren't indifferent to the message.

Outcome

Immediately after being aired, the spot was mentioned and published by baseball related online media generating views equivalent to thousands of dollars in media buying. (mlb.com, foxsports, deadspin.com, sun-sentinel, among others). The campaign reduced the gap between the brand and a market that so far didn't have any emotional bond with it. In doing so, Powerade showed support to an athlete that was facing a great challenge, and at the same time, provided a platform for people to manifest their own support and passion. In terms of business and sales the result were very interesting. To this day in Miami, a key market, Powerade's market share grew 5.7 points and 4.2 points in dollar share versus the previous year.

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