Who are you in the customer's mind ?

Do you know exactly what is sport drink?

Are you capable of telling the differences between “sports drink" and “energy drink"?

When the market is becoming saturated with various types of energy drinks, sports drink seems to open a new potential market segment with a new kind of beverage that helps to supplement minerals and water lost when doing physical activities. It sounds healthier, less harmful for health than energy drink, which has a bad reputation of making your brain strong temporarily and then destroying it by sugar and caffeine. Though receiving less negative feedback from users, sports drink have not been rightly evaluated yet.

Why do people cannot differ “energy drink” and “sport drink"?

(Source: pinterest)

• Positioning

Being developed in 1970s as a source of “hydration” and “carbohydrate replacement" for athletes, “sport drink” was positioned in customer's mind as a source of energy supplementary for people who are doing physical activities. That definition makes sport drinks nothing different from “energy drink". Just ask 10 people randomly in the street about some “top of mind" brand of sport drink, I'm pretty sure that 9 of them will answer “Redbull" instead of a truly sport drink brand like Gatorade.

• Distribution

If you have time to take a look in the soft drink zone in a supermarket in France (maybe Auchan or Carrefour), you'll easily find out that some Powerade bottles are placed in the “Energy zone", right beside a wide range of Red Bull, Monsters, Dark dog etc. Nothing to question why people always make mistakes telling these 2 types apart.

So, when “sports drink" comes to your mind, which characteristic you're thinking of?

According to “Category research - Sport drink" of Buzzmetrics, consumers are still confusing about sport drink. In addition to some discussion about quality, flavors, ingredients,..., people are also mentioning “dehydration", “ion supplementary”,..., which are all the features of sport drink that brands are trying to promote on social media. It can be said that consumers are gradually more aware of this type of beverage. Therefore, it is undeniable to say that Sport drink is a potential market recently, so what brands should do to improve consumer's awareness?

• Educate customers, provide them with more information about sport drink: Sports drink is not soft drink.
• Increasing the habit of using sport drink when doing physical activities
• Emphasizing the benefit of sport drink over energy drink.
• Increasing presence by sport event sponsorship.
• Having a separate category for sport drink in supermarket

In the end of the day, positioning is always on customer's mind. That's why brands need to shape a clear image of their products and convey a clear message to customers.

(Source: Getty Images)

- Mai Do Quynh-