When I first discovered this Gatorade “Mission Control” idea, I was a little confused about its purpose.
This promo video, released last year, has a lot of style. But it doesn't do a great job explaining exactly how it works:
Here’s what I gather: At Gatorade’s headquarters in Chicago, one room contains monitors displaying data which is gathered from all sorts of social media. With it, their people are supposed to be able to immediately measure the public reaction to Gatorade and things related to Gatorade. It provides the ability to quickly intensify strategies that are working, and abandon those that don’t. If the buzz is good, do more. If it’s bad, try something else. According to this Mashable article, Gatorade made a short commercial featuring a song that a lot of people actually liked. Once they realized that people liked the song, they immediately went to work recording a full-length version of the song, which was released a day later to Twitter and Facebook followers.
Even still, I was confused by the need for the “mission control” room with the nice monitors. It seems almost retro-futuristic, like some sort of movie version of NASA Ground Control, or the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. It’s a lot of cryptic-looking data flashing by too fast for the average human mind to comprehend. Hey, if you really wanted to monitor social networking, or create your own social networking experience, couldn’t you make something less centralized that people could just access from their own computers? Wouldn’t that be, you know, THE VERY ESSENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA?
Honestly, I was baffled. But NewThink partners Janet and Mike know how to spot an angle being exploited, and they let me in on the secret: Mission Control is as much about spectacle as it is about functionality.
The takeaway quote from the project is the idea that Gatorade wants to “take the largest sports brand in the world and turn it into the largest participatory brand in the world.” Here, utilizing social media almost takes a backseat to creating the perception that you know how to utilize social media. Who is that promo video intended for, after all? Doesn’t it seem a little circular to promote your promotion-promoter? But Mission Control needs to be seen by the public. “See?!?!? You are participating with us, and we are listening! Look at all these monitors we bought for you!”
[When you command a room full of undefined computery-looking things, this is the way you think.]
That's not to say Mission Control doesn't provide any useful information, but the spectacle factor raises an important point. If glorified sugar-water needs to be seen as a social media brand, than what sort of thing DOESN’T need to be promoted as a social media brand?
That's not to say Mission Control doesn't provide any useful information, but the spectacle factor raises an important point. If glorified sugar-water needs to be seen as a social media brand, than what sort of thing DOESN’T need to be promoted as a social media brand?
