Positioning and Brand Loyalty

Positioning and Brand Loyalty

When I think of a sports product I immediately think sports drink. There are so many different ones on the market these days, all in competition with one another to be the best sports drink available. From Gatorade to Powerade each have their own marketing concept and tool to drive consumers their direction. Gatorade can be found on the sidelines of more than 70 Division/colleges as the official sports drink of men's and women's intercollegiate sports. It also holds the title of the official sports drink of the NFL (Gatorade, 2012). Powerade is now the Official Sports Drink of the London 2012 Olympic Games. With these credits backing them, brand loyalty is very high for these two competing sports products.

According to the research firm SymphonyIRI Group the sports drink category has had the highest level of brand loyalty among consumer goods for over the last three years. While brand loyalty is defined as buyer's total purchasing in a particular category to be more than 50%, the sports drink category has 87.6%, even through the hard economic conditions (Sports Business Daily, 2011). Gatorade has been around since 1965. It became the official drink of the NFL in 1969. So what makes it have such high brand loyalty is probably its long presence on the scene. Consumers see the history of the product and knowing that the NFL as adopted the drink as their official drink definitely helps them. People want to see the product out in the market that they love. And what is better to a sports fan than seeing their favorite player drinking the same drink they themselves can purchase for a relatively low cost. Powerade is bottled by the Coca Cola Company which in itself has a high degree of brand loyalty. It is easy to see how Powerade has become so successful.

When searching for both sports drink Gatorade proved to be the easiest product to get information on. Gatorade's website is easy to navigate and easy to obtain information on the product. Simply typing in the name on your search engine will bring up a full page of the product's website leading you to anything you may want to know from the history, to the various products available,