Connecting Brand and People

The Challenge

Helping a leading sports beverage brand become more empathetic with fans of their drink.

One of the best ways to practice empathy is to actually experience it with your target. Our client, a sports drink company, signed up to do just that. They wanted to get out of the office and into their drinkers’ everyday lives… to really take a walk “in their shoes.” The challenge was two-fold: understand people’s relationship with sports and working out… and get the client teams out of their comfort zones along the way!

The Approach

We designed two seriously action-packed days to make it all happen – kicking it off with an extensive immersion and empathy training, outfitting the brand insights, marketing, and sales teams with all the skills they would need to get out in the field and get to know their drinkers as real people.

And when we say ‘field’ we’re not kidding! 102 clients, 140 drinkers (from ages 6-55) and a handful of professional motivators (fitness instructors, coaches and wellness enthusiasts) took to the soccer fields, racquetball courts, yoga mats, and gym spaces to work out together. This was then followed by sitting down to have a relaxed, informal chat about life and the role of sports in their lives.

The Impact

The event wrapped up with a half day of workshops, where we guided the Sports drink teams through what they heard and learned. We identified key foundational learnings, breakthrough insights, and business-changing implications for the brand moving forward.