Protein shakes are stereotypically found in the hands and ’grams of gym and fitness influencers. Muscle Milk is out to put an end to that.
The PepsiCo brand has been using the tagline “Own Your Strength” for years and primarily targeting people with “intense weight-lifting regimens,” according to Marissa Pines, senior marketing director for PepsiCo’s Gatorade portfolio, which includes Muscle Milk. In its latest campaign, the brand pivots to a new tagline: “Strength For It All.”
“All sorts of consumers are looking for more protein in their diet,” Pines told Marketing Brew. “They may be a pro athlete, or they may be super early in their fitness journey, or they may not be using it for working out at all…We want to make sure that Muscle Milk, as a brand, is approachable.”
Pro-file: Muscle Milk is embracing an “approachable for anyone” brand persona these days, Pines said, but that doesn’t mean it’s abandoning athlete starpower. The “Strength For It All” campaign, which started running on TV, online video, and social on April 1, features Las Vegas Aces forward Candace Parker and Seattle Mariners center fielder Julio Rodríguez, with additional creative featuring US Men’s National Soccer Team captain Christian Pulisic coming this May.
The pro athletes lead the ads, but the creative also depicts everyday people working out, playing with kids, or both, in the case of the shot of a woman running while pushing a stroller in the spot starring Rodríguez.
Parker is a longtime Muscle Milk partner; Rodríguez and Pulisic are new to the lineup. Rodríguez joins Parker in promoting Muscle Milk, while Pulisic’s portion of the campaign, which is set to start running on May 1, focuses on the brand’s new plant protein shakes.
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Perfect timing: Sports fans may be thinking that the debut of a campaign starring basketball, baseball, and soccer players in the spring is no coincidence. They’d be right.
“You've got Julio’s spot airing just before [MLB] Opening Day, Candace as she's heading into [WNBA] training camp, and then for Christian, his spot is actually going to air one month later, right before a summer full of national soccer games,” Pines said. “The timing was very intentional, and it also syncs up with the launch timing of Muscle Milk Plant.”
The overarching campaign is anchored by the three spots with Parker, Rodríguez, and Pulisic, and it also includes other content like six-second video spots and ads running via retail media networks and e-commerce sites like Amazon through July, according to Pines.
Priorities: The brand will look to reach different audiences with different spots based on the athlete and product featured, Pines said. The ad for Muscle Milk Plant, for instance, will be targeted toward “people who are more likely to be buying plant-based products,” she said. Muscle Milk prioritizes “long-term metrics” like brand equity and sentiment, so it measures its marketing efforts in aggregate for the year as opposed to on a campaign basis, Pines said.
Olympic dreams? One thing the brand isn’t prioritizing—perhaps surprisingly given its sports roots—is the Paris Olympics.
“That one’s not actually not a huge part of our strategy,” Pines said. “We’re excited about the leagues that our pros are participating in…There are many major sporting events that we do focus on, we do participate in. Can’t be everywhere.”