Research showed people believed cricketers weren’t elite athletes, and thus didn’t require Gatorade’s hydration to perform at their peak.

To change the false perception, we created The Bolt Rate, a brand new televised statistic, that harnessed Catapult GPS technology to record player run speed data between the wickets. Unlike traditional cricket stats, the Bolt Rate focused purely on explosive performance – using data to highlight the elite athleticism of cricketers, and thus, their need for hydration – something that’s never been done before.

To launch the Bolt Rate, we recruited the planet’s fastest athlete and die-hard cricket fan, Usain Bolt, who trained the Australian Cricket team to improve their run speed ahead of their upcoming Ashes series against England.

When the series started, the Bolt Rate became integrated into live broadcast, letting fans and commentators track and compare run speed data of their favourite players live at The Ashes and beyond.

Simply put, we took data that had never been harnessed before and used it to create a brand new statistic in a game obsessed with statistic. This gave media, fans and commentators a brand new way to enjoy and experience one of the world’s oldest games.

Before every game, we fitted players of the Australian Cricket team with Catapult GPS trackers. These trackers captured the top speed each batsman recorded while running between the wickets and fed this data back to a live Bolt Rate leaderboard hosted on Cricket Australia’s website and integrated into live broadcast.

Not only did this instant relay of player data let fans get closer to their favourite players by tracking their performance in real time, it also enabled commentators to discuss a part of the game they’d never been able to talk about before, firmly cementing Gatorade within the sports statistically obsessed culture.

By capturing player run speed data and using it to broadcast a game-changing stat during live matches, we demonstrated the importance of Gatorade for achieving peak athletic performance, helping insert them firmly into the sport’s culture, making Gatorade more relevant to the game of cricket than ever before.

The stats on our stat say it all:

- 75% brand engagement compared to 20% competitor average

- 63% athletic credibility compared to 27% competitor average

- 69% brand recall compared to 19% competitor average

- Over 500 pieces of editorial globally including mainstream media such as Fairfax, News Corp, Channel 9 News, Today Show and the front page of The Sun’s sport section.

- Global reach of over 200 million

The Bolt Rate is a first-of-its-kind cricket statistic that measures player run speed between the wickets and broadcasts them live during televised games.

Harnessing Catapult GPS technology, we captured player run speed data during live games, with pinpoint accuracy, instantaneously broadcasting them on Australia’s largest sports TV network, as well as cricketaustralia.com.

We launched our new stat at the Ashes, often considered the “Superbowl” of cricket, allowing fans and commentators to compare the performance of the game’s most legendary players in a way they’ve never been able to do before.

While our campaign spoke to all fans of cricket, our specific target audience were socially competitive male athletes aged 25 to 35.

Rather than create another ad to reach this demographic, we harnessed player run speed data to create the Bolt Rate, a stat that integrated Gatorade into live broadcasts of the summer’s biggest sporting event.

During every game throughout the Ashes series, we fitted players of the Australian Cricket team with Catapult GPS trackers. These trackers captured the top speed each batsman recorded while running between the wickets and fed this data back to a Bolt Rate leaderboard hosted on Cricket Australia’s website and integrated into live broadcast.

This seamlessly integrated Gatorade into the stat obsessed culture of cricket, helping them outshine the game’s biggest sponsors at a fraction of the budget.

Gatorade has sponsored the Australian Cricket Team for over a decade, but in recent years, it’s faced a couple of challenges.

Firstly, it’s struggled to get the cut through against major spending sponsors like KFC, Qantas and Commonwealth Bank.

Secondly, Gatorade’s purpose – to fuel elite athletes to perform at their best - wasn’t synonymous with cricket. This was due to the perception that cricketers aren’t elite athletes compared to AFL players and other high endurance athletes, and therefore don’t require functional hydration to perform at their best.

Our brief was to integrate Gatorade into the action of cricket to improve its sport performance credentials amongst players and fans.

We had two key objectives: to highlight the elite athleticism within cricket in order to drive Gatorade’s relevance, and to prove that Gatorade is the best fuel for improving performance within the game, such as speed and endurance.