Background
Be Like Mike was created by advertising agency Bayer Bess Vanderwarker, which had been doing advertisements for Gatorade since 1983.[5] After being purchased by the Quaker Oats Company in its acquisition of Stokely-Van Camp that same year,[6] Quaker slowly grew Gatorade from a regional drink brand into a national powerhouse. Seeing an opportunity to market Gatorade to the general public, they ran daytime television and print advertisements outside of sports-related media to great success.[7] In its first eleven months under Quaker, Gatorade sales jumped from $83 million to $120 million.[8] By 1989, Gatorade was making $450 million in annual sales out of the $475 million comprising the sports drink market at the time.[9] As competitors like Powerade and Mountain Dew Sport began to appear on shelves, Quaker introduced more varieties like Gatorade Light and Free Style to attract people interested in lighter versions of their beverage.[10] It also began to increase their budget for marketing, spending around $30 million by 1990.[11]
One of the marketing campaigns that Quaker used to propel sales during this period of growth was their "Thirst Aid" television campaign. The campaign was used from 1984 to 1990,[12] and consisted of a jingle written by songwriter Joe Lubinsky[13] that stated, "Gatorade is thirst aid, for that deep down body thirst."[14] However, in December 1990, federal judge Prentice Marshall ruled that Quaker had infringed on a trademark for "Thirst Aid" held by Sands, Taylor & Wood, which had acquired the trademark in 1973.[15] Marshall forced Quaker to pay Sands, Taylor & Wood $24.7 million in damages on top of legal fees and interest, and Quaker lost the ability to use the trademark in its advertising.[16][17]
With new competitors wanting Gatorade's market share, and a higher marketing budget – yet being unable to reuse their previous work – Quaker needed a new advertising campaign. They were interested in the emerging trend of using athletes to market their product: between 1983 and 1987, athlete endorsement earnings quadrupled to $500 million per year.[19] However, this was new territory for Quaker. The company had not included an athlete spokesperson in their American Gatorade promotions before,[14] and had only used tennis players Jennifer Capriati and Ivan Lendl to market the drink overseas.[20]
Bill Schmidt, a Gatorade sports marketing director, was interested in enlisting Jordan to be a spokesperson for their brand.[14] The basketball player won his second Most Valuable Player award for the 1990–91 NBA season,[21] and would go on to help the Chicago Bulls win their first championship in June 1991.[22] Jordan also had many sponsorship deals with other companies like Nike,[23] General Mills,[24] and McDonald's,[25] making him an attractive prospect for Gatorade.
In February 1991 however, Schmidt met with Jordan's agent, David Falk, in Charlotte to discuss the possibility of a sponsorship deal.[14][29] After negotiations, they were able to agree on a 10-year, $13.5 million Gatorade sponsorship for Jordan,[30] who was under contract with Coca-Cola until July 31 of that year.[31][32] Executives at the Chicago-based Quaker were happy that they were able to sponsor a star athlete who played for the same city. However, there were worries about whether the company was straying from their team-oriented values by signing an individual athlete to a sponsorship deal. Gatorade executive Cindy Alston recalled, "I think a lot of people were saying, 'We love Michael Jordan at a Chicago-based company,' but there was a lot of angst about getting it right."[14]
Conception and production
For Jordan's first Gatorade commercial, Bayer Bess Vanderwarker produced a draft version featuring highlights of him dunking. Midway through production, and after the draft had been approved, the ad agency convinced one of its former advertising executives, Bernie Pitzel, to come back and work on the project.[14] However, Pitzel was disappointed with the commercial after watching it, as he felt it too closely resembled Jordan's advertisements for Nike.[30][33]
Given three days to produce an alternative,[14] Pitzel came up with an idea to use the song "I Wanna Be Like You" from the 1967 film The Jungle Book. He pitched the song with revised lyrics and an arrangement by Chicago musician Cliff Coleman. However, discussions with Disney to license the song broke down after Disney asked for more money than Gatorade was willing to pay.
