Gatorade opens Dr. Seuss-inspired AR portal lens on Snapchat

Brief:

PepsiCo's Gatorade sports drink launched its first augmented reality (AR) Snapchat portal lens, letting users enter an imaginary world seen in the brand’s Dr. Seuss-inspired film, "Every Day Is Your Day," starring U.S. Women's soccer players Mia Hamm and Mallory Pugh. The lens will be available until July 7, per an announcement shared with Mobile Marketer.
The lens, which is timed with the FIFA Women's World Cup in France, lets Snapchatters walk around and explore an interactive animated world, tap a soccer ball to play three different scenes from the film and score a goal in front of a full crowd.
The movie is part of Gatorade’s "Sisters in Sweat” initiative to urge young female athletes to keep playing sports. A study cited by Gatorade said that by age 17, girls drop out of sports at 1.5-times the rate of their male peers and miss out on long-term benefits of athletic activity.

Insight:

Gatorade's sponsored AR portal lens on Snapchat is an extension of the PepsiCo beverage brand's "video everywhere" media strategy aimed at mobile users. By partnering with Snapchat, which is hugely popular among U.S. teens, Gatorade aims to reach a younger demographic that's more likely to watch video on their smartphones than traditional media channels like TV. Gatorade plans to spend 45% of its media budget on digital this year, up from 34% last year, with most of that spending focused on mobile platforms, Digiday reported.

Gatorade's past experiments with Snapchat include video games like Serena Williams's Match Point and its Super Bowl filter. The AR portal lens in this latest campaign offers consumers an even more immersive experience than other AR experiences, as users "enter" the portal and explore a digital world.

This activation follows last month's rollout of a free app to help teenage athletes capture and share videos of their best "sports moments." The Gatorade Highlights app can create broadcast-quality video clips with graphics and "motion stickers." The app aims to tap into a sports subculture among teens who watch sports highlight reels on their smartphones and share their own video clips with friends.

Gatorade's latest app extends its experimentation with new tech. The brand announced in April that it's testing a wearable "sweat patch" to help athletes track their hydration and nutrients lost through perspiration. The sports drink brand also has worked to reach younger audiences with its sponsorship of a podcast called "The Secret to Victory," produced by Gimlet Media. The series highlights how professional athletes overcome defeat and stay motivated to win.