Gatorade and our agency commissioned a third party to dig into the reason girls were dropping out of sports. This research uncovered that feelings of "not being good enough" and “refocusing efforts on activities that align with future goals” were the major drivers of teen girls dropping out of sports. Overall, teen girls were not seeing the "long-game" of sports participation.

Gatorade wanted to ensure teen girls understood that what you learn from sports can help to make you successful no matter where life takes you. But it had to come from an authentic voice. We also knew that to today’s teens, YouTube stars were seen as more influential than traditional celebrities. So instead of using Gatorade’s roster of all-star female athletes, we wanted to leverage digital content creators to tap into a platform that would have relevant influencers and reach the teen girl athlete.

Together we created “Versus”, an original scripted series that highlights the challenges that teen female athletes face on and off the field and reinforces the important life lessons girls learn through participation in sports, that can help them succeed later in life.

Awesomeness leaned into their existing talent who would best resonate with our female teen athlete including an all-star cast of traditional actors and social media influencers. The series chronicled the relationship of rival lacrosse captains who are forced to play on the same team during a high-profile summer tournament. To win big, the girls must find a way to put their differences aside and support each other through competition and life off the field.

“Versus” lived on Awesomeness’s YouTube and Verizon Go90. Paid media across YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr and Snapchat drove to the series. Talent also posted on their own social handles to gain interest amongst their followers.

A Nielsen Brand Lift study was commissioned as added value to understand lifts in brand/sports perception pre/post exposure to the series:

• 22pp lift that Gatorade is a brand that supports girls in Sports

• Lifts across the board in how team sports positively affects girls:

- Increases confidence +11pp

- Teaches leadership skills +10pp

- Improves chances for college scholarships +10pp

- Develops long-term life skills +10pp

- Builds friendships +7pp

• 7pp lift in “likelihood to join a team”, 18pp lift amongst those who aren’t currently on a team

Viewership Results by the Numbers:

• 13.9 million YouTube views: 10.3MM series views & 3.5MM teaser views (unable to capture Go90 views)

• Paid media guaranteed us 9.5MM views, series over delivered by 4.3MM or 145%

• 42.5MM minutes of Versus episodic content watched

• 275K YouTube engagements (Likes, comments, etc.)

This work is a great example of how you can use media partners to drive efficiencies and create content. With this work, we were able to pay only for the distribution of the content and get the production as entirely added value. We challenged the traditional model and the outcome was beautiful produced content that was strategically distributed to our desired audience on relevant platforms.

Gatorade wanted to effectively engage teen female athletes with relevant content in an environment that was already part of their current behavior. The creative idea lent itself to long form content, being able to express the benefits of sports participation in an entertaining way. Gatorade had seen previous success with long form content on YouTube and it is also the preferred channel, amongst teen athletes, to consume long form content.

To find the right partner that could create great content, tap into existing influencers, and have a large scale on YouTube, we looked no further than AwesomenessTV. With 6.2MM YouTube subscribers, thousands of passionate creators as a part of their creator network, and 2.5 billon video views to date, they were the right partner to bring this idea to life.

Gatorade inherently believes that the lessons learned from sport participation prepare athletes for whatever they choose to do in life. Skills like leadership, resilience, confidence, and conflict resolution are not only valuable on the court or field, but are applicable to everyday life. Year over year there has been a decline in sports participation and girls are dropping out of sports at 1.5x the rate of boys by the age of 14. Gatorade's core brand mission is to inspire and motivate athletes. They wanted to understand what was causing girls to drop out of sports, motivate them to stay in the game, and be seen as a brand that supports girls in sports.