A Sports Drink Brand Scores with Football Fans on SiriusXM

As every athlete knows, it’s good to be on top—but the competition is always coming for you. The same goes for brands that market to athletes and sports enthusiasts. To stay top of mind with your consumer base (and score some new fans), your brand needs to show up in the right content and align with the sports content they love.

From pre-game hype on morning commutes to live play-by-play streaming through headphones to post-game debates in podcasts, SiriusXM meets fans in moments screens can’t touch. We offer best-in-class partners, publishers, and targeting tools to get you in the game and score points with highly engaged audiences.

In this case study, you’ll see how a legendary sports drink brand partnered with us to strengthen its brand position, influence consumer sentiment, and win over new consumers.

The challenge

When you’re already one of the best-known names in your category, simply getting noticed isn’t enough. The challenge is finding new ways to strengthen consumer sentiment—and give them even more reasons to reach for your product.

Build on an already-iconic brand

A leading sports drink brand wanted to increase key brand metrics and reinforce its position as the superior choice for athletic hydration. With strong existing awareness, the opportunity wasn’t simply to introduce consumers to the brand. It was to use premium, contextually relevant audio to strengthen favorability, reinforce benefits and differentiators, and increase consideration and purchase intent.

And for a brand so closely connected to sports, football season offered a natural moment to put that strategy into play.

The solution

The brand turned to SiriusXM Satellite to surround sports fans with its message in an environment built for fandom. The campaign tapped into SiriusXM’s premium sports programming, including Sports Radio, ESPN Radio, SiriusXM NFL Radio, and SiriusXM College Sports Radio.

Meet sports fans where fandom happens

That put the sports drink brand alongside the conversations and coverage fans were already seeking out—creating a contextually relevant connection between the campaign, the product, and the moments when consumers were thinking about sports.

And the audience proved to be a strong fit. Among SiriusXM listeners exposed to the campaign, 80% worked out at least once a week, nearly two-thirds worked out two or more times per week, and more than one in three consumed sports drinks weekly. 1

Bring the energy of the game into the creative

The campaign didn’t just show up around sports—the creative transported listeners to the center of the action. Game sound effects, musical chants, clapping, drums, and sports-focused dialogue helped bring energy to the spots, while messaging focused on hydration and the product’s ability to help athletes rehydrate, replenish, and refuel.

Second-by-second creative analysis found that the sound effects and brand mentions drove spikes in listeners describing the ad as energetic. Messaging around hydration, replenishment, and refueling also resonated as relevant, while language positioning the product as a superior sports drink was seen as empowering.

The results

The campaign proved, even for when a brand is already at the top of its game, there’s still room to raise awareness, build affinity, and drive sales.

Turn familiarity into favorability and intent

Satellite listeners showed a strong response to the campaign, delivering significant lifts in two critical brand metrics: 1

• +41-point lift in brand favorability

• +50-point lift in consideration/purchase intent

Both results significantly outperformed benchmarks for brands with similarly high existing awareness.

The campaign also drove a +5-point directional increase in unaided awareness. Among exposed listeners, unaided awareness reached 82%. 1

Strengthen what the brand stands for

Exposure didn’t just change how consumers felt about the brand, it also strengthened associations with the product benefits at the heart of the campaign. Among exposed listeners: 1

• 94% associated the brand with being a superior choice for athletic hydration

• 94% agreed that it helps consumers rehydrate, replenish, and refuel

• 91% viewed it as a brand they trust

The campaign drove particularly strong lifts across attributes tied to athletic performance and differentiation, demonstrating the power of pairing relevant messaging with an equally relevant environment.

Make an impression on free agents

Perhaps the strongest results came from consumers who bought other sports drinks but not the advertised brand. Among these competitive-brand consumers, the campaign drove: 1

• +60-point lift in favorability

• +53-point lift in consideration/purchase intent

Parents of teens also responded strongly, with a +47-point favorability lift and +45-point consideration/intent lift. 1

Together, the results show how SiriusXM Satellite helped an already iconic sports drink brand do more than maintain awareness. By combining premium sports programming, a highly relevant audience, and energetic creative, the campaign strengthened brand perceptions and moved consumers—including potential competitive switchers—closer to purchase.

SiriusXM Media FTW

From game day play-by-plays and post-game analysis to athlete interviews and fantasy draft reccommendation to songs that amp up the excitement, SiriusXM Media is your connection to fandom. With eight professional league partners, 20+ sports talk stations, eight podcast publisher partners, 500+ sports podcasts, and tons of sports themed music stations, we can help you reach and resonate with any sports fan.

We did it for them. We can do it for you. Let’s talk.

Still need proof that SiriusXM drives results?