Gatorade on a super social mission
Gatorade has been keeping a very close eye indeed on social media. Slap in the middle of the marketing department in its Chicago HQ, the sports-drink maker has been operating a Gatorade Mission Control Centre tasked with looking out for online chatter about the brand.
The GMCC is something of a war room for Gatorade, engaged in real-time tracking of social media conversations. There, an array of electronic tools are busy doing round-the-clock monitoring of the brand and its competitors, plus of highly relevant trends such as sports-related nutrition.
Gatorade marketers say that, through the GMCC, they can watch reactions to a new campaign, or to specific TV ads, and can see if they are getting the right sentiment reactions from consumers.
And that allows them to react accordingly – for example, the brand recently launched an ad spot featuring rapper David Banner, and when it found the commercial generating buzz, it recorded a full-length version of the song and gave it away on Facebook and Twitter.
“The voices of our athletes and influencers are heard with Gatorade’s Mission Control,” says the brand. “This is because we go to the epicentre of the conversation. It’s all about creating the dialogue, proactive outreach and continuous tracking.”
Gatorade’s Mission Control video is right here.
More on monitoring brand chatter at the Buzz about the Social Media Buzz event.
