Powerade is without question the leading brand of sports drink in New Zealand, commanding over 70% market share. Although protecting that market share from new entrants into the category is important, the real opportunity for Powerade is to grow volume by increasing frequency of usage and so purchase. Analysis showed that, although sports people love to grab a Powerade on game day or when participating in a big event, they rarely use it in training. Therefore the objective of our campaign was to encourage our target of 'born sportsman' to view Powerade as an essential tool in their everyday training not just to be used on special 'gamedays'. A multichannel campaign was developed, using the benchmark of all New Zealand sports people, the mighty All Blacks to demonstrate the importance of using Powerade in high intensity training well as on game day. ‘Train like you’re in the game’ was born.

‘Train like you’re in the game’ began with a TV spot featuring the All Blacks. Training footage was combined with real live footage to prove the old sporting adage, ‘How you perform in training decides how you perform on the day'. The TV encouraged our target to visit the website where exclusive content featuring the All Blacks further explained the importance of preparation and training in terms of game-day performance. The campaign also came to life in activation with the Powerade Challenge. Through registering online, born sportsmen received an RFID wristband, which would be recognised along a downtown Auckland training run course. ‘Checking in’ along the course our target could later compare run times online with other runners and the All Blacks themselves. On completion participants received a free Powerade from the finish line vending machine, reinforcing that Powerade is just as important when training and not just on game-day.

The campaign ran from June to October 2011. It first broke with the All Blacks TV campaign to coincide with the Tri Nations rugby series. From the time of the campaign launch there was an immediate sales effect, with volume sales improving year on year 7.5% in June and 10.8% in July. However, when the Powerade Challenge was introduced to the campaign in late July, sales really took off. A volume sales increase year on year of 31.8% in August and 33.6% in September showed the real strength of the campaign kicking in. Not only was the campaign a sales success, closer examination showed we met our objective of increasing frequency of consumption amongst our core target of ‘born sports people’. Weekly consumption (consuming at least once a week) by our core target grew from an average of 16% prior to the campaign to an average of 26% during the campaign.