Exploring Gatorade's Turf Finder Initiative: A Conversation With PepsiCo’s Ankit Agarwal

Sports events such as the IPL, World Cup, Olympics and many more are drawing unprecedented attention, prompting brands to tap into this popularity for many years now. They are either collaborating as sponsors or creatively leveraging sports themes to enhance their brand image. Giving an instance of the latter, PepsiCo India's hydration brand, Gatorade unveiled the 'Turf Finder' initiative in February this year.

This endeavour, in partnership with Leo Burnett India, debuted with its first turf in Mumbai and is designed to foster a passion for sports among the youth amid the hustle and bustle of India’s metropolitan cities, to motivate them to incorporate physical activity into their everyday routines.

Everything Experiential caught up with Ankit Agarwal, Associate Director - Energy & Hydration, PepsiCo India when the brand dropped its second turf in the capital in the popping streets of Chandni Chowk on 14 April, 2024, where he spoke about the germination of the Turf Finder, the concept behind it, making it a multi-city initiative and more.

Excerpts:

What was the idea and concept behind the Turf Finder initiative, and the reason behind launching this is in terms of sports experiences?

As a brand, Gatorade has always been on a mission to promote sports, whether it's globally or in India. We are very closely associated with sports and obviously with the government also now stepping up and making sure that sports becomes a big part, we wanted to play our role in it. One of the insights when we were talking to people, especially in the megacities, was that there is no space near them to play. And that's a very big change from the time when we were growing up because we always had those open spaces where we could go and play.

That's a constraint nowadays, and that was the germ behind the idea. So the obvious question was - how do we get to the people if they can't come to the turfs? We had to make sure that we had something close to them, where they could go and play.

That's where we tied up with Google Maps and we analysed the data of the previous 15 years, and we realised that the cities are very busy, but there are these moments and spaces in time where the city opens up for you.

For example, in a movie hall, the first movie show starts at 11:00 a.m. In the morning, the parking lot is empty because there's nothing there. Can I drop a turf there and can I get people to play, especially if it's close to a residential area?  Similarly, if there's a shipping yard where some repairs go on weekly from 2 - 4 pm. Could I drop a turf off there, and can I get the youngsters around to play?

The idea behind this was how to grant more access to sports to people today.

Being a multi-city effort, how many cities are you planning to take Turf Finder to? And how many turfs do you plan to drop this year?

We have chosen the three megacities where the traffic is the most and the space is the least. So we're going up to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore.

We've already dropped five turfs in Mumbai, and this is the second one in Delhi. The first turf drop was done earlier in March in Lajpat Nagar, and we are aiming to drop another turf in the city soon. We also dropped a turf at Kolkata on 13 April, 2024. We’ll be coming to Bangalore too.

Wherever we have dropped turfs, before we do so – three or four days before that, we start marketing in a circle of 3 km around that. We put up Instagram posts, we'll dispute flyers, and we make sure people know about it.

Gatorade introduced the initiative with a film that portrayed the hectic, fast-paced lives of urban residents. Amid their busy schedules and tight spaces, the film powerfully conveyed that the desire to play is all that's needed; the brand promises to help find the space. And we've had a lot of walk-ins coming in who saw our ad and who wanted to play. But the good thing is that whenever we put a turf, we get a lot of people who are just walking by and who just are so interested in what's happening on the spot.

We have been trying to partner with people, and even with the government, like I mentioned, who can support us with these initiatives.

About the number of turfs - the idea is to drop as many. We are not letting this go. So, we are targeting to drop at least 100 turfs by the end of this year. But the sky is the limit. As many places we get, as many people who want to play - we want to be there for that.

This was the pilot phase, but the results have been heartening. The number of people that are coming to our turfs - we talk to them; they feel so good that this is something so close to their home, and they seem enthusiastic about having us make this repetitive, probably every Monday or so.

What are the kinds of sports that you have at these turfs to engage with the youth?

We have basketball, cricket, football, and badminton. In those four sports, we cover almost every preference that people have. Each of these sports is played at short intervals on the turf.

It's heartening to see so many people wanting to play, and not having the space to play. The idea is to get sports to people. We believe that sports are not just a way to remain physically fit, but they also teach you a lot – they teach you teamwork and leadership, they teach you about losing and winning and much more.

Do you plan to make Turf Finder a regular or consistent initiative? Also, do you prefer to repeat the sports activities on the same turf again, or consider to discover a new turf each time?

We want to make this a habit. So the end goal of this initiative for us is that by the end of one or two years when we have stopped dropping turfs, or if we stop dropping turfs, people should get in the habit of playing. And after that, even if we are not dropping a turf near them, they should continue to play, and they would. Because they like playing so much, they will figure out a way to play around there.

So the idea is to not just go to new places every time but to make it a habit. You want to keep repeating the same places and make sure that you get the same crowd playing again and again and becomes a habit for them.

What about the footfalls at these turfs?

Across Mumbai and Delhi, we get around an average of 20 to 30 people who are coming in on every turf. And we believe probably more than that. For example, the Chandni Chowk turf has got in more than the average – we must have got around 50 or more registrations.

And we believe that, when we make this repetitive, for instance in the same place, if we keep putting a turf for three or four weeks, we'll get much more fit for this endeavour. Because everybody will come to know about it that this happens regularly.

The other thing is that the kind of poster, for example, at Chandni Chowk was a basketball. Basketball is usually a five versus five. So in a two-hour slot, maybe you can fit 30 people or 40 people maximum. So that too becomes a constraint. But I’m sure, the more turfs we drop, we'll start overriding these constraints and we'll get in more people.