Turf Finder can change the way sports infrastructure can be planned. A blueprint for sports in the future. A simple traffic data was able to visualise opportunity for sport. This can be implemented for highly dense city in the world.

After seeing the brand's initiative to find space from nothing, and seeing the city's interaction with Turf Finder, the government of Mumbai have set out to find new turf locations for our program - even granting us special permissions. The Mumbai municipal body, BMC has already partnered with us for phase 1 to unlock locations which once had grounds.

While India has always been a sports-loving nation, it is now becoming a sports-playing nation as well. A country that has conventionally deemed sports (besides cricket) unimportant, is now prioritising sports for professional and personal growth. This growing sporting appetite is inspired from multiple things:

· India winning medals in more, and newer sports at Tokyo Olympics. 71% parents want their kids to take up sports as a hobby or profession post Tokyo Olympics.

· India’s growing stellar performances across global sporting tournaments (cricket and non-cricket)

· People’s ever-growing intent to be fit and healthy (catapulted by Covid)

Even the Indian Government has increased investment in sports infrastructure by 11% in FY 2023-24 (highest hike for sports till date), and launched initiatives like ‘Khelo India’ (Play India) – reviving the sporting culture in India at the grass-root level by building a strong framework for 20+ sports disciplines.

But this barely scratches the surface for a gigantic population. The Government is currently spending USD 407 million for a population of 1.4 billion, which means every Indian is allocated USD 0.29 per year for sports. This is momentously lower than other countries like United Kingdom (USD 58 per person per year) or Australia (USD 11.69 per person per year).

This spelled opportunity for Gatorade to go above and beyond Government initiatives and play a meaningful role in people’s lives. Gatorade exists to fuel your sweat and play more - the only brand that could rightfully step in to take this onus.

Objective: To create meaning in the everyday lives of sports-playing Indians, we wanted to solve a problem in their contextual sporting reality.

Gatorade exists to fuel your sweat and play more, and India wasn’t playing enough. A nation of 1.4 billion people where only 2% play sports. Reason? Lack of space. 76% Indians complain ‘lack of space’ as reason to not play any sport.

A problem especially strong in fast-urbanising cities like Mumbai - a city with 1 playground for every 1 million people. This created a blaring gap– a rapidly growing appetite to play more against rapidly decreasing open spaces to play. With urbanisation on a rise, we wanted to realistically address lack of space by creating space within the limited space of cities.

Brief: Configure a smart solve for lack of space to play, within the chaotic space of fast-urbanising cities, starting from Mumbai (India’s most crowded city).

Turf Finder is a dynamic platform that enabled anyone to play within tight urban spaces, by sharply determining where, what, when and how to drop the turf, per location.

1. WHERE: We dropped our turfs where they were needed the most. We identified crowded city clusters (space/1000 people). Then, basis the least people-per-open space ratio we selected locations to analyse road traffic.

2. WHAT: We wanted to host sports that people wanted - either a local favourite or inaccessible sports ( w.r.t amenities or means) and accordingly hosted the most apt sport.

3. WHEN: We dropped the turf in tandem with the common down time of people in the locality, when they stepped out to jog, play, etc.

4. HOW: We ensured our turfs were agile and mobile. Every turf was playable for 2-3 hours, giving people enough play time and judiciously use the traffic down-time.

Introducing Gatorade Turf Finder. A path-breaking tech-innovation, in partnership with Google Maps, that analysed 20 years’ worth historic traffic data and real-time insights to predict when roads go empty – becoming open spaces to drop the turf and play!

Why roads? Because Indian roads are temporal. Their usability is measured not just by space, but by space and time– meaning these roads are multipurpose! Roads normally used for everyday traffic could also be used for playing, by dropping the turf at the right place, at the right time. An ingenious configuration of crowded urban space that took cities by storm– starting with Mumbai.

Our on-ground turfs were modular, configured to be assembled and dismantled within 20 mins to ensure maximum play time and give the roads back in time for traffic. These turfs became urban community playgrounds, reimagining open spaces for play unlike anything before in the world.

Using Google’s historic traffic data (20 years) and live business tracking (real-time traffic movements), we configured the apt time slots to drop the turf in selected regions. Traffic data visualised in finding opportunities for sports is path changing.

To inform people of the upcoming turf locations, we dropped geo-targeted ads and playable OOH ads (first of its kind) 48 hours prior the turf drop. Also, our microsite let people track these turf drops.

Our turfs were modular state-of-the-art set-ups (60 X 40 ft). They could be assembled and dismantled in 20 mins to ensure maximum play time and give the roads back in time for traffic.

This initiative can be a blueprint for any highly dense urban city in the world.

1.The State Government partnered with us- offering 30+ new locations for future turfs in Mumbai, as part of ‘Fit India Movement’ - launched by Indian Prime Minister to encourage Indians to become more active.

2. Gatorade was sampled and consumed by over 100+ people at every drop

3. Future turfs to be deployed in urbanizing cities of Mexico and Portugal, with 150+ future turf drops expected across India.

4. Sales increased by 121% (Mar’23 – Apr’24) with profit increase of 4% and earned media USD 1 Mn.

5. Turfs reached people at scale with 111 Mn reach, 51.39 Mn impressions and 40.3k website visits.

6. We broke the category record with view-through-rate of 58%.

7. Was spoken about on SonyLiv Sports Network by former Chelsea/Mancity defender Terry Phelan.

8. Behaviour change

•Top of mind awareness: +2 pp

•Total spontaneous awareness: +4 pp

•Consumption: +5 pp

•Consideration to buy: +3 pp