The Use of Memory Jamming by Gatorade Ad Campaigns on Television

Anyone who has ever watched a sporting event can recall an ad on television where high profile athletes are consuming Gatorade. Whether it be Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, or Derek Jeter, all of these high profile athletes have one thing in common, they all drink Gatorade to perform at their best(or at least that is what Gatorade wants you to think!). Since being introduced in the United States in 1965, Gatorade has become the official sports drink of a number of sports including the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League just to name a few.

Gatorade’s message over the years has been that it restores electrolytes, helping athletes stay on top of their game by refueling them with nutrients they have lost through sweat. Memory jamming is a technique used to influence the way consumers encode and recall their consumption experiences. Gatorade uses memory jamming by engraining the benefits of their products into the mind of the consumers, and by using a variety of athletes who help to advertise Gatorade’s brand.

In recent years, Gatorade’s ad campaigns have moved away from the technical benefits of the drink, focusing more on elite athletes consuming their product. Powerade, Coca-Cola’s sports drink, launched attack ads on Gatorade in 2009, which led to a significant loss in market share from 80.0% in 2008 to 73.7% in 2009, a decrease of 6.3% (BusinessWeek). In one of the ads, Powerade claims that Gatorade is missing two electrolytes, magnesium and calcium in their sports drinks, and instead markets Powerade as the complete sports drink (Brandweek) . Some experts felt as if the decline in market share was in part due to Gatorade’s new ad campaign that proved to be more indirect and abstract than past years. The consistency that Gatorade had in their advertising for years was compromised with their new ad campaign, and as a result, it affected their market share in a negative way.

This blog post was written by Ben Lee, Tracy Liang and Freddie Joyner