From Jon Hussey, SVP, Director of Brand Planning, Palio

Don’t get me wrong, I love Gatorade. And by that, I mean that I love orange Gatorade, and sometimes drink red or yellow, or maybe purple when I am tired of orange. I am an avid cyclist, runner and triathlete, so I probably drink an average of at least two bottles a day. At $1.50 a bottle that works out to over $1,000/year…of Gatorade. Frightening. Especially since I had never thought about it until they pissed me off.

How did Gatorade manage to make me angry? Confusion. It’s as simple as that. First they expanded the number of flavors beyond all reason (according to their Web site, there are at least 25 flavors, with more coming). In order for a store to stock all of the different flavors they have to limit the amount of space allocated to each flavor. That means they run out of orange. A lot.

Next, they made flavors that look so similar that you have to actually read the label carefully to make sure that you are getting what you want. I buy this product every day. It should be a simple exchange. I see it, I grab it, I pay for it. Imagine expecting a nice orange Gatorade and getting a mouthful of Extremo Mango Electrico. Not pleasant.

They introduced a low-calorie line. Are you kidding me? I drink it for the calories. To make matters worse, the low-cal labels look a lot like the regular Gatorade labels. Another thing to watch out for.

Then they changed the labels, rebranded if you will. Now I have to figure out which of these newly labeled products is the one that I want. Did it change somehow? What is different about it?

Finally, and this is what pushed me over the edge, they are in the process of adding a whole new layer of confusion by introducing the G Series, which includes 01 Prime, 02 Perform, 03 Recover, and G Series Pro product groupings. Apparently, my beloved orange Gatorade will fall into the 02 Perform G-Original sub-grouping with 19 other flavors. Somehow, the G2-Low Cal sub-grouping of flavors will also fall into the 02 Perform group (low-cal Gatorade that will help you maintain your energy during exercise?). Their thinking must be that I will now buy 3 different orange Gatorades, one before workouts, one during ,and one after. Plus, they have the nerve to tell me that for the last 15 years they have had an elite system of Gatorade products that was only available in professional locker rooms, but that it will “soon be available to you.”

So what am I going to do? Switch to something else. There are a lot of better options for serious athletes. And most of them are going to be cheaper.