Brett O'Brien, Gatorade Senior Vice President joins Yahoo Finance Live to break down how the sports drink market is faring and what’s next for the company post-pandemic.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: After getting their COVID-19 vaccine, people are probably going to be heading back out to the gym to burn off those pandemic pounds. And chances are, they're going to be looking for a drink to get them through that workout. Let's see what Brett O'Brien is cooking up. He's the Senior Vice President and General Manager at Gatorade.

You know, Brett, we were joking a little bit off camera, one year ago today, you were actually in our studios, and we were talking about the future of Gatorade. I'll start there. How is the business trending right now in terms of sales versus this point last year?

BRETT O'BRIEN: Yeah, I'll tell you what, it's been a pretty wild year, certainly not just in our business, but across the board, as you all know. It's been a really great year. And it's been a really interesting one. You know, people-- to your point, so many people stopped working out in gyms. You saw youth sports come to a halt. We saw, you know, less and less activity out in groups.

But a lot of that shifted indoors. It shifted inside. It shifted to kind of families having workouts together. It shifted to digital workouts. And because of that, consumption for Gatorade has been really, really strong.

And people are buying it differently. They're not buying one-offs. They're buying it in bulk and-- and using it at home, and thus, we're really excited to see that our business continues to grow really, really strong.

BRIAN SOZZI: Are you seeing-- are you seeing retailers place larger commitments for Gatorade ahead of the spring season?

BRETT O'BRIEN: Yeah, we do see that, sure. And I think there's-- there's a couple of reasons for that. You know, first is when the weather heats up, certainly you see more activity outside, and you see more people sweating. And what's the best thing to do when you sweat and that's replace your electrolytes, and Gatorade's the best way to do that. But there's also the other factor of people just getting out, right, and more and more people potentially shopping more, getting more frequent in stores, hitting convenience stores more often, hitting gas stations more often. And because of that, sales-- certainly retailers are expecting those sales will go up and so orders are really at a great clip.

MYLES UDLAND: You know, Brett, it's Myles here. I'm curious about how you guys are thinking about the major kind of pro athlete, college athlete kind of market these days? You know, when I was growing up, it was Gatorade, Powerade, that was it.

And now BioSteel's in there. BodyArmor's in there. And I'm just curious as a brand how you are thinking about some of those tie-ins? I mean, Michael Jordan, right, that was my childhood is want to be like Mike. But the world's a little bit different now. How are you guys thinking about those kinds of avenues?

BRETT O'BRIEN: Yeah, you know, certainly athlete relationships are still incredibly important for us. And we continue to find those athletes that-- that want to work with us in a pretty aggressive manner. And by that, I don't mean who just want to drink our product on camera. I mean athletes who literally want to get better, who want to drink Gatorade, work with us through our Gatorade Sports Science Institute to learn about hydration, to learn about what they're putting into their body, how they're fueling on and off the court.

And I think those are the types of athletes we love to work with, people like-- like Zion, like Jayson Tatum, certainly Elena Delle Donne over on the WNBA side, Fernando Tatis Jr., who's just going to light it up in the MLB this year, people who are saying I love where I'm at as an athlete, but I want to get better. So we'll continue to work with athletes pretty aggressively.

We'll also continue to work with-- with our big partners across the leagues, because it's not just about being on the sidelines there. It's also about being in the locker rooms and learning from athletes and understanding what they're fueling needs are, how we can help them get better, how we can help teams progress. And so those-- those avenues for us, athletes, sports partnerships, leagues will continue to be an incredibly important part of what we do.

JULIE HYMAN: Hey, there. It's Julie. I want to ask you since Myles alluded to BodyArmor and some of your other competitors, how you guys are doing market share-wise, because there are a lot of new entrants into the market?

BRETT O'BRIEN: Yeah, I certainly think it says quite a bit about this category, right, the growth opportunities here. And it's a category that we started in the mid-50s and have progressively grown year after year after year. And now we've grown it to a point where others are starting to take notice and say, hey, that's a really interesting category.

You've got more people working out, more people trying to get healthy, more people trying to stay in shape, and thus reaching for sports drink options. So yeah, there are a lot of folks entering that space and certainly trying to gain share. For us, it's really not about trying to gain that immediate share of trying to drop price or anything like that.

We're about this long sustained growth. We saw tremendous growth this past year. We're expecting tremendous growth this year and the year after that. Our point is let's go drive this category the way we built it.

Let's continue to redefine it. Let's keep getting better. Love the competition and love us trying to get scrappy as a result. So we're really excited about what the future holds.

BRIAN SOZZI: Brett, don't-- don't take this personally, but over the past year during my work-from-home environment, a lot of Peloton riding, a lot of workouts on apps, I have now started to drink highly caffeinated carbonated drinks with various vitamins and minerals in it during my workout, and that has led to, really, less Gatorade consumption. How are you going to get me back, that millennial customer? Do you have a new product on the horizon?

BRETT O'BRIEN: Yeah, so one of the interesting things that we've got-- we've got a couple of different things on the horizon, but-- but even in store right now that we've just launched. So you were just showing some clips of Gatorade Zero, and I think Gatorade Zero's a really interesting option in our portfolio now. It's now a billion-dollar brand, and it's one of those brands that it's such an easy get, and yet it is the Gatorade that you know and love without the carbs.

So if you're going to do a 15-minute Peloton ride, you may not need as much carbohydrates as if you're going to do a 45-minute or an hour boot camp, right. And so you now have options. You can choose more-- more carbohydrates, less carbohydrates. Or if you want increased electrolytes, we've just launched a product called Gatorlyte. And if you're a heavy sweater, if you find yourself, you know, doing one of those Cody Rigsby Pelotons and you're sweating like crazy, you're going to want to have some more electrolytes. And so Gatorlyte, it's a great solution for that.

I think for us, there isn't one-size-fits-all. It's understanding athletes. And Brian, what you need when you work out is very different than what I need when I work out. It's very different than what Julie needs when she works out. We've got to have solutions for all of you, and, in addition, teach all of you exactly what it is that you need.

And that's-- we're launching-- we just launched a new product called the Gx Patch, which tests your-- your sweat rate, as well as your salt levels in your sweat, and then marries it to a Gx app, which then allows you to personalize your fuel experience for yourself as an athlete based on your goals. So it's really about personalization, athlete understanding, athlete intelligence, and then building a really strong portfolio of products in order to meet all of those athletic needs.

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, the app might get me back, but is going to be hard for me to kick that caffeine habit that I have built up. Nonetheless, Brett O'Brien, always good to see you, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Gatorade. Stay safe. We'll talk to you soon.