BodyArmor Taps March Madness In Quest To Topple Gatorade

Kurt Badenhausen

Forbes Staff

BodyArmor endorser Mike Trout douses teammate Kole Calhoun after he singled in the game-winning run against the Oakland Athletics. (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea/Getty Images)GETTY IMAGES

Abilene Christian and Gardner-Webb are a pair of upstarts making their first appearances in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year. Their March Madness stays are likely to be short as a 15 seed and 16 seed respectively and facing powerhouses Kentucky and Virginia in their opening round games.

But another upstart will have a much longer run in the tourney, guaranteed to make it to the National Championship Game on April 8. BodyArmor sports drink takes over from Powerade this year as the official sports drink of the NCAA Tournament. The drink will be on the sidelines and locker rooms for all games, and its logo will adorn all coolers, cups and water bottles. The deal signed in November covers a total of 90 NCAA championships across sports.

The brand will use March Madness to launch its largest marketing campaign, which was created by NBA legend Kobe Bryant, who is the third largest investor in the company. The commercial spot running during the tourney features NBA All-Stars Donovan Mitchell and James Harden using a rotary phone and typewriter, respectively, in a nod to items that were once helpful.

“We are speaking to the outdated messages that have been used in the past,” says Bryant about the campaign. “Those things were all good, but there is a newer way to do things, and that is the tonality of the campaign. Thank you to Gatorade. We appreciate your services. We’ll take it from here.”