At sporting events everywhere—from pee-wee football to the Super Bowl—one image that’s sure to come up is that of the winning coach having a Gatorade cooler dumped on his head after his team picks up a championship.
A recent spot from agency Element 79 Partners, Chicago, features LL Cool J and highlights the ubiquity of Gatorade at sports events. Paul Hunter of bicoastal HSI Productions directed the ad, "Everywhere," with visual effects done by Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. In the spot, the hip-hop superstar is on a rotating round platform surrounded by TV screens that show images of people engaged in sports on both professional and amateur levels. The screens swoop in and out of view while LL Cool J sings about all the places the sports drink can be found: "sandlots/half pipes/half courts/center courts/rec leagues/major leagues…" As the list goes on, a chorus of "in labs" can be heard throughout, a reference to the ongoing testing of the beverage at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute. The images on the swooping screens show tennis matches, basketball games, baseball games and other events. At the finale of the :30, the screens flash Gatorade’s tagline: "Is it in you?"
Danny Schuman, group creative director at Element 79, and copywriter on the spot, related that the concept of "Everywhere" grew out of Gatorade’s desire to get the message out that its product is the tested and proven sports drink. "One way to do that was to talk about all the places Gatorade is consumed and used," explains Schuman. "One of the powerful truths about Gatorade is that it’s used on playing fields from pee-wee football to the Super Bowl, from Little League to the World Series, and everywhere in between. … ‘Everywhere’ is really a spot about the fact that [Gatorade] is used in every corner of the athletic earth."
The choice to use LL Cool J was not a difficult one to make. "He has a unique blend of a few things," said Schuman. "[He’s a] sports authority, he’s a figure that people—teens especially—relate to and admire, and he’s also incredibly physically fit, in shape and athletic."
The singer’s talents also came into play. "We wrote a script that that had an incredible amount of information in it," Schuman notes, adding that the lyrics mention roughly 40 different places where Gatorade could be found. "So when you have someone who can deliver that information in a very rapid succession, and being an artist who performs music that delivers a lot of words and lyrics, he was a perfect fit."
Incidentally, this was not Gatorade’s first collaboration with LL Cool J—in 2001, he scored the soundtrack for a spot called "Leave It on the Floor," directed by Fritz Flieder, who at the time was with now defunct Ritts/Hayden, out of Foote Cone & Belding, Chicago, which previously had the account.
The Song
The lyrics in "Everywhere," written by Schuman, were created prior to LL Cool J coming aboard the project. They were written to specifically describe certain places, and to segue thematically, but "LL made them his own," Schuman says. "When he saw the lyrics, he and his producer took those words and … created a track they felt good about, and that we felt good about."
The song was recorded prior to the "Everywhere" shoot, and was produced by Def Jam, New York, LL Cool J’s record label. "He laid down [the track] in two takes," reports Cheryl Lindquist, the agency executive producer on the spot. "We recorded the track at Hit Factory, New York. It was late at night, and he had an entourage of people. They know what LL likes, and what his vibe is, and they communicated that to us, which was really helpful. He and his team really contributed and plussed [the track] a lot for us."
Having a director experienced in music videos was important to the success of "Everywhere," said Lindquist, noting that the team screened about 40 or 50 directors’ reels. Another criterion, though not mandatory, was someone who had worked with LL Cool J in the past. "Paul gave us some insight into LL—what he was like to work with," she shares. "[Paul] was a great guy, and he really got it—he could get LL in and out, and it was seamless." Both Schuman and Lindquist say that the artist was also gracious and accommodating during the shoot, even staying two hours beyond the scheduled time.
According to Schuman, the plan from the beginning was to have the track recorded before the shoot. "That way, [LL] could perform to the track," he explains, "because he had a lot of performing to do. He was basically on a round, rotating platform, with blue screen behind him—[the backgrounds] were created in post by Digital Domain."
Cris Blyth, the visual effects supervisor from Digital Domain, attended the shoot, and also did extensive pre-visualization with Hunter. There were tennis balls on set at the height of the TV screens, Blyth relates, so LL Cool J would have something to focus on while performing. "Paul really had to direct him in a way that let him know that these screens would be whooshing around him," he recalled. "LL Cool J was really good at tracking his head towards the screen so we could match the screen and put the right footage in the area."
In addition to Schuman and Lindquist, agency credit goes to Dennis Ryan, chief creative officer, and Joe Burke, group creative director/art director. JD Smyth of Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles, cut "Everywhere."
There are no immediate plans to use the artist in future spots, but he and other music acts aren’t out of the question. "Music and sports go hand in hand these days," Schuman points out. "If you go to a game, there’s about as much music as there is action."
