VOTD: Native Dancer in Gatorade Commercial

This video has been passed around for years now, but what exactly inspired Gatorade to make it?

According to a post by the Red Circle Agency out of Minnesota they were contacted by PepsiCo to help create a TV campaign to be show at the 2009 Gathering of Nations celebration in New Mexico.  The effort was the brain-child of Francella Giatrakis of PepsiCo who is director of an internal organization at PepsiCo commited to raising awareness for Native American issues at the corporate level.

Ms. Giatrakis's idea was to connect the heritage of athleticism for the Gatorade brand to pow wow dancing.  At the same time, PepsiCo was re-branding its line of Gatorade products with a visually stunning campaign created by Spike Lee and premiering on Super Bowl Sunday 2009.  Red Circle met with the Gatorade brand team and the agency TBWA/Chiat/Day Los Angeles and developed its own ‘Native American' flavored message for this great brand.  Red Circle asked championship pow wow dancer R.J. Smith of Wisconsin to be the spokesdancer, and received permission to use the track “Crow Hop” by Red Bull.

The campaign was a big hit at its debut of the Gathering of Nations and has had quite the afterlife on YouTube.