Dream Team Blog Series: Breaking Brand

As a creative marketing professional you hear it over and over again—what’s your brand?  In my experience in my young career, this definition can be extremely helpful and focusing.  It can help take a mere dream or aspiration and make it a business that stands for something in particular.  But when is it good to venture outside the beaten path of your brand?

For an established brand with a family-friendly product that has been trusted for years, you might think it’s not such a great choice to stray from what works.  But being a social-media saavy millennial myself I have seen one tried and true example of when it works to stray from this method—viral buzz.  And Pedialyte has definitely built it up slowly but steadily over the past year or so. You may have seen this unexpected hangover remedy shared on your newsfeed already, even though its intended use is to speed up the recovery time of dehydrated sick children.

Many adult social media users across the web have raved about the Pedialyte treatment, likening it to super-powered Gatorade after a night of partying.  What’s brilliant is that Pedialyte has finally acknowledged the praise it has gotten from its new unlikely customers with a pair of young adult-targeted advertisements.  With the ads featuring photos of lethargic looking adults turning to Pedialyte and clever copy like, “Save the Day. When last night’s party threatens to ruin today, those in-the-know reach for Pedialyte—the secret to advanced rehydration,” I think it’s fair to say Pedialyte can expect a newer, taller legion of faithful customers.

Emily has been working with me for over 2 years now as a marketing assistant on my team.  She graduated from Adelphi University with a Bachelors’ in English with a creative writing focus and previously worked in property management.  She and her fiancé are set to wed in 2015.