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The Gatorade shower has found a home outside of stadiums: TikTok. The sports drink recently debuted a TikTok campaign driven by nine athlete influencers dubbed the “Gatorade Social Squad,” who will post content related to the brand now through November.
- The young athletes each have strong followings on TikTok, ranging from tens of thousands to more than a million followers. Gatorade held “tryouts” on the app earlier this year to fill out the squad. Carolyn Braff, Gatorade’s head of brand strategy, said the company got 1,500 video submissions.
- “We were extremely impressed with the creative sports-related content that we effectively crowdsourced through this initiative. We ultimately chose the final athlete roster based on how we celebrate our athletes—through a diverse lens on sports and talent, as well as the creators’ unique personalities and how they’ve established themselves on the platform,” Braff told Marketing Brew. The company declined to discuss how much each influencer is getting paid.
Hmmm. Young athletes? Influencing? The campaign comes on the heels of the NCAA’s recent decision to let athletes monetize their name, image, and likeness, or NIL. But Gatorade says its Social Squad is not the brand’s foray into college-athlete partnerships—yet. Braff said the agreements were signed before the NIL changes earlier this summer.
“We are assessing the landscape and evaluating opportunities for college athlete partnerships, as we see the value they can bring,” Braff said. “We’re considering all relevant athletes when choosing athlete partners down the line.”
The athletes marked their debuts into squad-dom by posting videos of themselves sporting Gatorade gear—Caitlyn Schrepfer shows off some fancy soccer freestyle moves before getting dunked with a cooler of Gatorade, while Gage Ferguson throws a precision football pass before...getting dunked with a cooler of Gatorade (it’s a running theme).
Zoom out: TikTok is solidifying its seat at the big kids’ table among social platforms, and brands are taking notice. US users’ time spent on TikTok surpassed YouTube for much of the past year (at least for Android users), per an App Annie report. Plus, the company itself has been building out tools to help brands connect with influencers.—ZS