I’m annoyed with Gatorade. And, the slumping sales figures demonstrate that I’m not the only one. Ever since Gatorade felt the need to change its labeling and branding and add new products to the mix, sales have been heading downhill like the Boston Marathon course…or Obama’s job approval numbers…or mortgage rates…pick your analogy.
In the good old days (3-4 years ago), Gatorade’s green label and orange lightning bolt clearly identified the one and only version of the product. It was easy to find on grocery store shelves and the drink was constant from bottle to bottle–I knew exactly what to buy and also knew what to expect. Easy, peasy, lemon-lime squeezy.
Then, some marketing “geniuses” decided that the green label and orange lightning bolt needed to be tweaked, then came the different versions named after different athletes–even Tiger Woods, whoops, had a formula named after him–insert Tiger joke here…e.g., did you know the flavor for him was “Embarrassing Red”? And now there’s some annoying 1,2,3 Gatorade number system. The numbers supposedly coordinate to pre-workout, during workout, and post-workout, I think?? And one version has less sugar than the other, I think??—ugh, I can’t keep this sh*t straight–excuse my Fijian.
Yesterday I spent what seemed like 5 minutes looking at the bottles on the grocery store shelves, trying to figure out which drink was the one I wanted–old fashioned Gatorade. I ended up mistakenly purchasing a low sugar version that tastes awful and another 8-pack of what I hope is the right mix.
Note to Gatorade: Just let me buy the original product, with the easy-to-identify label, and if I want to reduce the sugar or sodium content, let ME add water to it. Active folks are not going to buy Formula #1 because you say that’s “pre-workout” and simultaneously buy Formula #2 because you say that’s for “during workouts”.
The age old saying holds true…”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
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