The Coolest Seats in the House: Here’s how this brand gave soccer fans the best seats for free!
| From the desk of Miles Everson: I’m thrilled to highlight another campaign in today’s “Gorillas of Guerrilla Marketing!” For those of you who may not know, guerrilla marketing is an out-of-the-box strategy that empowers marketers to use unconventional tactics when interacting with their target audience. I’m a fan of this strategy because it shows just how impactful such campaigns can be when executed properly and creatively. For today, I’ll talk about a guerrilla marketing campaign that helped an established brand generate visibility in a different market. Continue reading below. |
Gatorade is the brand most people think of when it comes to sports drinks. It's ubiquitous across every level of American sports, from sideline coolers at high school football games to the benches of professional teams in leagues like the NBA and NFL. That visibility has helped Gatorade corner the U.S. sports drink market, where it holds a 60% share. Simply put, Gatorade is a dominant brand domestically. But dominance at home doesn't guarantee dominance abroad. As a global brand, its success ultimately depends on how well it performs in other markets too. In 2025, Gatorade showed just how effective it can be in drawing attention to its brand in another market. Where, exactly? In Argentina!
Argentinians are known for being avid football (soccer) fans… and that provided Gatorade with the opportunity to draw eyeballs in the country. How? By addressing a specific pain point every Argentinian football fan doesn’t want to experience each time they watch a game: Getting the worst seat . Not everyone who watches a game gets the privilege of watching it from a good seat with an unobstructed and immersive view. This is an inescapable experience. Even the luckiest of fans are still forced to get undesirable seats from time to time. This time, though, Gatorade decided to step in by giving a few deserving fans seats that gave them a great view of the game. The brand pulled this off not through buying up available seats, but by giving lucky fans an incredible spot to sit in: the Gatorade coolers located in the sidelines!
According to creative agency R/GA, Gatorade’s partner for this campaign, the gatorade cooler is: “ A spot that’s always been on the sidelines, sometimes used by players or coaches, but never by fans. Technically, it’s not even a seat, but it became the best one in the stadium.” The rationale for using Gatorade coolers made sense. Since these were located around the sidelines, those who got to sit on them throughout a football game got a great view! How exactly did Gatorade and R/GA choose the lucky fans? By using social media and some tech wizardry! According to R/GA, fans typically post photos of the games they watch on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter). So, what the agency did was build a bot that combed through various social media posts and compared that with viewership data gathered from games, like the distance of a person from the field and the visual obstructions fans encounter when watching. From all of that data, the R/GA and Gatorade were able to evaluate which fans were most deserving of the coolest seats in the stadium! What were the results of the “Cool Seats” campaign??
Aside from those results, the “Cool Seats” campaign also received attention from media outfits like ESPN, The Drum, and accolades from awards-giving bodies like D&AD. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that “Cool Seats” was a successful campaign for Gatorade. “Cool Seats” performed so well because of how it drew eyeballs for Gatorade. By putting a creative twist on a pain point every fan gets to experience, Gatorade and R/GA were able to meaningfully engage their target audience. This success story shows just how effective guerrilla marketing campaigns can be, even for established brands like Gatorade. That said, your brand doesn’t have to be an established one for this strategy to work. All you really need to do is find a pain point and address it in a witty, meaningful, and highly creative way! Hope you’ve found this week’s guerrilla marketing insight interesting and helpful. Stay tuned for next Thursday’s Gorillas of Guerrilla Marketing! Do you want to know how a leisure brand built on physical experiences captured the same sense of adrenaline rush online ? See it in next week’s article! |
Miles Everson
CEO of MBO Partners and former Global Advisory and Consulting CEO at PwC, Everson has worked with many of the world's largest and most prominent organizations, specializing in executive management. He helps companies balance growth, reduce risk, maximize return, and excel in strategic business priorities.
He is a sought-after public speaker and contributor and has been a case study for success from Harvard Business School.
Everson is a Certified Public Accountant, a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Minnesota Society of Certified Public Accountants. He graduated from St. Cloud State University with a B.S. in Accounting.
