Mark Kirkham, SVP and CMO, PepsiCo International Beverages, and Tarun Bhagat, CMO, India and beverages, South Asia, PepsiCo, chatted with Manifest soon after Gatorade India won a Gold and Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

The duo also discussed AI, the meaning of creative awards for marketers, how ‘Turf Finder’ can achieve scale, and more...

While the full interview can be read in the July issue of Manifest, in this piece we reveal what the duo had to say about the campaign, which was conceptualised by Leo Burnett.

Kirkham said, "Let’s go a step back with our ‘Fuel Tomorrow’ campaign. This talks to parents of athletes and the athletes themselves. We did a research study in 19 different markets globally including developing and developed markets. What we understood was that there were four or five key barriers for sports – cost, safety, facilities, equipment and confidence. Confidence, specifically in young girl athletes is a challenge."

"Every time we sponsor a big tournament, we give back to local communities through donations or facilities. We also look to boost confidence through ‘confidence coaches’. In the past, we have had legends of the game (football) like Kaka and Andriy Shevchenko talk to a bunch of children. These conversations give children confidence and educate them about the power of sport. The last part, and that’s a good transition for Tarun to talk about ‘Turf Finder’, is that you might have a passion for sport – it could be cricket, football or basketball, but you need to have a place to play," he added.

Explaining the campaign idea, Bhagat said, "In the last year, we have sort of relaunched Gatorade in India. We have been working with the international beverage team to make sure this happens in the correct way while focusing on the consumer. We found two insights – consumer education and access to sports. We realised that our job in the first couple of years is to make sure that our source of business is more mega city focused, where privileged ones might have access to some turfs, but the majority of the Indian audience has no place to play."

He added, "So, under the accessibility bucket, we worked with Leo Burnett who came up with an innovative idea which we bought in a heartbeat. The human problem was access to playing sports. They looked at cities with a view of space and time. This meant that there could be a busy spot in a city at 3pm, but it could be free at 6pm. This insight took us to Google for data and ‘Turf Finder’ was born. We started it with five-odd activations. Now we have 15."

The duo also discussed how how marketers view creative awards like Cannes, AI-infused creativity and more.

Read our full chat with the duo as part of our detailed Cannes coverage in the July issue of Manifest. Get your copy now!