Gatorade will pay fine for app that disparaged water
The Gatorade Co. agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a complaint saying the beverage maker used a mobile game featuring track superstar Usain Bolt to illegally advertise water as a bad drink for athletes, the California attorney general’s office said Thursday.
The game “Bolt” was released in 2012 and featured a cartoon version of the Olympic gold medalist running in “an endless race to recover gold coins stolen by pirates,” according to a news release from state Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
However, the Bolt avatar ran faster and increased its “fuel meter” if the player touched a Gatorade icon. Conversely, the avatar slowed down and the fuel meter decreased if the game player touched a water droplet. The game’s instructions urged users to “keep your performance level high by avoiding water.”
Such games, which primarily serve as advertisements for a brand, sometimes called advergames, can negatively affect children’s desire for healthy food, according to studies cited by Becerra’s office.
The game is no longer available but was downloaded 2.3 million times and played 87 million times in 2012 and 2013, and was also available for part of this year, Becerra said. About 70 percent of the players were ages 13 to 24, the news release said.
In 2013, the game won a Mixx award from the Interactive Advertising Bureau in the mobile advertising category, for mobile gaming integration. The bureau’s website, which once displayed the Gatorade game among its 2013 winners, no longer includes it. A spokeswoman for the bureau could not immediately clarify the reason for the change.
“Making misleading statements is a violation of California law,” Becerra said in the release. “But making misleading statements aimed at our children is beyond unlawful, it’s morally wrong and a betrayal of trust. It’s what causes consumers to lose faith in the products they buy.”
The settlement includes $120,000 earmarked for research or education “on water consumption and the nutrition of children and teenagers,” prohibits Gatorade from “negatively depicting water in any form of advertisement,” and bars Gatorade from advertising in media that has more than 35 percent of its audience composed of children 12 and under, the news release said.
Gatorade, of Chicago, is a subsidiary of Stokely-Van Camp, which is owned by PepsiCo.
“‘Bolt’ was designed to highlight the unique role and benefits of sports drinks in supporting athletic performance,” a PepsiCo spokeswoman said in a statement. Noting that the company also owns bottled water brands such as Aquafina, she added, “We recognize the role water plays in overall health and wellness.”