LET’S WIN THE HYDRATION RACE.
Give us the athletes. Missing The Pieces Studios will build the stories, campaigns, characters, platforms and original IP that help PepsiCo lead athlete storytelling, culture and hydration conversation all year long.
Three original engines. Ten commercials. Different jobs. One larger objective: build attention, athlete connection, cultural relevance and long-term brand value across PepsiCo’s sports and culture ecosystem.
This Proposal Gives PepsiCo Three Different Ways to Win.
Each engine can stand on its own. Together, they create a broader sports, culture, content and community ecosystem that can stretch across Gatorade, Pepsi and the wider PepsiCo portfolio.
Outside The Lines
Own the relationship with the athlete.
A year-round athlete-development, storytelling and content platform built around who the athlete becomes beyond the game.
- 24-week high-school + 12-week collegiate / professional life playbooks
- Docuseries
- Commercial campaigns
- School + campus programming
- Workforce development + career readiness
- Networking + relational capital
- NIL + personal-brand development
- Financial education + entrepreneurship
- Identity, leadership + life planning
- Community impact
- Athlete storytelling
- Year-round activations
Homecoming Wars
Own the culture.
A docu-style, fan-voted competition franchise built around high-school and HBCU homecomings, community pride, pageantry, bands, tailgates and school identity.
- Annual content franchise
- Fan voting
- HBCU + high-school activation
- Live events
- Social content
- School pride + rivalry
- Brand integrations
- Touring footprint
Gatorade Heroes
Own the imagination.
A Gatorade-branded hero universe built around elite athletes, powers, personality and hydration — designed to help Gatorade keep winning the hydration race.
- Commercials
- Short-form / vertical series
- Traditional TV / streaming potential
- Animation
- Toys + collectibles
- Special-edition packaging
- Cards + comics + gaming
- Awards + activations
Outside The Lines develops the athlete.
Homecoming Wars captures culture.
Gatorade Heroes captures imagination.
Everyone Saw the Athlete Between the Lines. PepsiCo Can Be the First Big Brand to Say It Saw the Person Outside Them.
Outside The Lines is the athlete-development and storytelling engine. It creates a meaningful lane PepsiCo can own around identity, life preparation, career exposure, emotional growth, community impact and the real story behind the uniform.
Outside The Lines Is Bigger Than a Workbook.
It is a repeatable platform capable of turning an athlete into a story, a story into content, content into community relevance, and community relevance into long-term brand equity.
Become Known as the Brand That Helps Prepare Athletes for Life.
Outside The Lines gives PepsiCo a way to care for athletes beyond performance. The platform can help athletes think about identity, money, relationships, career, purpose, leadership and life after sports.
That creates a deeper emotional relationship with athletes, families, schools and communities — and it makes the brand relationship matter beyond the scoreboard.
PepsiCo Chooses Which Brand Leads the Platform.
Outside The Lines can be strategically led by Gatorade, Pepsi, LIFEWTR, Pure Leaf, or a broader PepsiCo-supported execution depending on the audience, environment and business goal.
- Sports-led version
- Campus + school version
- Community give-back version
- Portfolio-table storytelling version
Two Athlete Stages. One Development System.
Outside The Lines begins with structured development. The 24-week high-school edition builds the foundation early, while the 12-week collegiate and professional edition accelerates the work for athletes navigating NIL, careers, money, relationships, leadership and life beyond competition.
Build the Foundation Before the Next Level.
The high-school program develops identity, daily structure, emotional discipline, financial awareness, leadership, NIL awareness, communication, networking, career readiness and a life plan beyond the game.
Open 24-Week Playbook →
Accelerate the Athlete's Next Play.
The collegiate and professional program focuses on identity beyond performance, workforce development, purposeful networking, professional communication, NIL strategy, financial awareness, entrepreneurship, leadership and preparation for what comes next.
Open 12-Week Playbook →Prepare Athletes to Enter Rooms the Game Cannot Take Them Into.
Outside The Lines is not only about life after sports. It is about helping athletes build professional value while they are still competing.
- Resume + professional profile development
- Interview preparation
- Professional communication
- Internship + career pathways
- Industry exposure
- Entrepreneurship
- Translating athlete skills into workplace value
- Networking with purpose
- Building + maintaining relational capital
- NIL professionalism
- Personal-brand development
- Career readiness beyond the jersey
This Is More Than a Workbook. It Is a Way for PepsiCo to Live Inside the Schools and Make an Impact.
The program creates a credible education and community-service footprint inside schools. It can be structured during the school day, through an athletic period, advisory or enrichment block, or after school. PepsiCo can support the curriculum, playbooks and programming while helping schools give athletes practical preparation for life.
Implementation can be flexible: PepsiCo can support a trained Outside The Lines facilitator, or a coach, teacher or approved school leader can be equipped to implement the program. That gives the platform the ability to scale while still feeling local to each school and community.
The result: education, athlete development, workforce preparation, networking, community give-back, trust and influence — with PepsiCo becoming part of something useful that lives inside the school instead of only showing up on game day.
The Life Playbook
The workbook structure creates a teachable athlete-development program that can live in schools, campuses, teams, community settings and brand-supported education environments.
Film the Real Growth
The lessons become episodes. The athletes become recurring characters. The brand gets a continuous pipeline of authentic stories grounded in real life change.
Turn the Mission Into Advertising
Outside The Lines creates a lane for purpose-driven sports campaigns, athlete storytelling and brand films that feel bigger than product placement.
Turn the Mission Into Advertising.
Outside The Lines can turn the same athlete-development mission into brand films that show why the person beyond the jersey matters.
Crossing The Lines
A multi-sport film built around one physical idea: athletes cross the sideline, chalk or baseline. Inside the lines, the game gives them structure. Outside them, life still requires a playbook.
Open Crossing The Lines →Playbook for Life Outside the Lines
One classroom. One board. A simple lesson that makes the larger point clear: athletes receive a playbook for the game. Outside The Lines helps give them one for life.
Open Playbook Commercial →Outside The Lines
The declaration film: Gatorade owns the performance between the lines while Pepsi becomes the proud-parent brand that sees the whole person outside them. The wider PepsiCo portfolio follows the athletes into home, family, friendship, work, mentorship and community.
Open Super Bowl Commercial →One platform can create two outcomes:
real impact in the lives of athletes and a year-round content engine for PepsiCo.
“Everyone saw the athlete… between the lines.
We saw the person… outside the lines.”
This is bigger than a tagline. It is a statement about how athletes have been marketed for generations — celebrated for what they can do inside the lines while much of who they are outside of them goes unseen.
Pepsi has an opportunity to be the brand that changes that conversation on the biggest possible stage.
Not after another company says it.
Not as a response to a cultural moment.
Pepsi plants the flag first.
Imagine those words being spoken during a Super Bowl commercial and seen by tens of millions of people at once.
From that moment forward, Pepsi is not simply saying it supports athletes. Pepsi is saying it sees them.
The Parent.
The Entrepreneur.
The Student.
The Creator.
The Friend.
The Mentor.
The Community Leader.
The Person.
PepsiCo also has the portfolio to prove the statement visually, not just say it. Gatorade naturally lives in competition, while Pepsi, Quaker, Pearl Milling Company, Cap’n Crunch, Lay’s, Doritos, Tostitos, Pure Leaf, LIFEWTR and other PepsiCo brands can appear throughout the athlete’s everyday life outside the lines.
Pepsi — “Outside The Lines”
This is where the platform becomes a Super Bowl statement. The film makes Pepsi the proud parent in the stands watching it's offspring — proud of what athletes accomplish between the lines, but even more interested in who they are outside of them. Celebrating the products you provide on the field and off the field that contributes to the whole person, not just the athlete.
Gatorade naturally owns the competitive world. As each athlete physically crosses the line of their sport, the scene transforms into the rest of life: home, family, friendship, work, mentorship and community. That allows Pepsi and the broader PepsiCo portfolio to prove the idea visually instead of only saying it.
The commercial is the declaration: “Everyone saw the athlete… between the lines. We saw the person… outside the lines.” Outside The Lines then becomes the long-term platform that proves Pepsi meant it.
BLACK SCREEN.
SOUND: Stadium atmosphere rises underneath a restrained cinematic score.
FADE IN: INT. STADIUM — NIGHT
A packed stadium glows under the lights. High in the stands sits a distinguished older white man holding an ice-cold Pepsi. He is calm. Observant. Proud. Watching more than the game.
Under the lights… the world knows them one way.
CUT TO: A fast, premium montage of athletes in competition.
— A football player on the sideline under stadium lights.
— A men’s basketball player between possessions.
— A women’s basketball player walking the hardwood.
— A soccer player near the touchline.
— A tennis player at the baseline.
— A track athlete locked into his lane.
Gatorade appears naturally throughout the sports world.
By the uniform. By the pressure. By the performance.
The football player steps across the sideline stripe. The white line transforms into the edge of a living-room rug. He is now at home with family — relaxed, present, fully himself.
The men’s basketball player steps over the baseline. The court line becomes a living-room edge. He joins a couple of the other athletes around a table with Pepsi, Doritos, Lay’s and Tostitos.
They saw the athlete… between the lines.
The women’s basketball player crosses the court line. The hardwood transitions into a warm kitchen. Her mom is at the table with family as breakfast is served — Pearl Milling Company pancakes, Quaker Oats, Cap’n Crunch, Ocean Spray, LIFEWTR and Pure Leaf naturally in the scene.
The soccer player steps over the touchline and into relaxed everyday life with friends.
But the lines were never the whole story.
The tennis player crosses the baseline. The line becomes the edge of a workspace. She sits at a laptop, building the next part of her life. Her racket rests nearby. Pure Leaf or LIFEWTR sits naturally beside her.
The track athlete crosses the lane. The finish line becomes a walkway at a community event. Now he is greeting people, shaking hands and serving the neighborhood.
Because when the whistle blows… when the buzzer sounds… when the match is over… when the race is run…
Stay with the athletes in their real lives.
At the kitchen table, a mom laughs with family over breakfast. A couple of the athletes sit together around Pepsi, Doritos, Lay’s and Tostitos. The tennis player is at her computer, still unmistakably herself beyond the court. Another athlete mentors younger kids. Another simply enjoys home and family.
Life is still there. A son. A daughter. A parent. A friend. A builder. A mentor. A leader.
Wider montage of those outside-the-lines moments, intercut with the proud parent in the stands watching the athletes walk into the rest of their lives. He is not just watching what they do. He is watching who they are.
More than what they do. The whole person.
Return fully to the proud parent. He lifts the Pepsi slightly, as if acknowledging the full journey he has just watched.
Everyone saw the athlete…
He opens the Pepsi.
POP.
Quick final flashes: breakfast with mom, athletes around the snack table, tennis player at her computer, mentorship and community.
END CARD: PEPSI
Proud of every side of who you are.
Portfolio lockup appears: Gatorade, LIFEWTR, Ocean Spray, Pure Leaf, Doritos, Lay’s, Tostitos, Pearl Milling Company, Quaker Oats, Cap’n Crunch.
…between the lines. We saw the person… outside the lines.
The Super Bowl Commercial Becomes the Declaration. Everything Afterward Becomes the Proof.
There are advertising lines that sell products. Then there are lines that become associated with the company bold enough to introduce them to culture.
Once Pepsi delivers “Everyone saw the athlete… between the lines. We saw the person… outside the lines.” on a stage as large as the Super Bowl, competitors can talk about the whole athlete afterward — but Pepsi has the opportunity to be remembered for making the declaration first.
That creates something considerably more valuable than a sixty-second commercial. It creates a platform Pepsi can build on for years.
- Commercials
- Athlete storytelling
- Gatorade campaigns
- Documentary content
- Social series
- Campus programming
- Workforce development
- Networking + career development
- Community initiatives
- Outside The Lines
DON’T JUST SPONSOR ATHLETES.
BE THE COMPANY THAT CHANGED HOW BRANDS SEE THEM.
Everyone saw the athlete… between the lines.
Pepsi saw the person… outside the lines.
An Evergreen Brand Property Built to Generate Campaigns, Content and Community Impact for Decades.
A Campaign
Commercials, athletes, stories and activations introduce the idea.
A Content Franchise
The curriculum, athletes and communities continuously create stories worth following.
A Permanent Athlete Platform
PepsiCo can own a lasting position around athlete development, education, workforce preparation and life beyond sports.
Because the problem Outside The Lines addresses does not expire. Every year there is another high-school recruit, another college athlete and another professional athlete learning who they are beyond their talent.
The campaigns can change.
The athletes can change.
The stories can change.
The platform remains.
Own the Culture Around the Game.
Homecoming Wars is a docu-style, fan-voted competition franchise covering high school and HBCU homecomings, with separate school categories, live community energy and major brand-activation potential.
Docu-Style Competition
Follow the traditions, bands, fashion, food, alumni energy, school pride, teams and community stories that make each homecoming different.
Fan Voting
Turn viewers into participants through rivalries, social engagement, repeat voting and hometown pride.
PepsiCo Brand Flexibility
PepsiCo can decide whether the most visible presence should be Pepsi, Gatorade, water or multiple brands working together across tailgates, athlete spaces and fan experiences.
Make Pepsi Part of the Homecoming Visual Language.
Imagine Pepsi cans and bottles across tailgates, alumni gatherings and fan-content moments, while Gatorade and water support athlete and performance spaces. The product does not feel pasted on. It feels like it belongs there.
Now the fan-voting model gives students, alumni and communities another reason to go live, post, record and tag the brand as they campaign for their school. The series becomes cultural content, community activation and visual brand presence all at once.
Homecoming Wars Can Command:
- High-school competition
- HBCU competition
- Docuseries episodes
- Social content
- Fan voting
- Live brand activations
- Sampling
- Campus experiences
- Community stories
- Music + culture content
- Annual awards
- Touring event footprint
Homecoming Wars — Pepsi Version
The complete concept, competition format, fan-voting system, culture opportunity and activation vision.
Open Homecoming Wars Deck →Athletes Become Characters. Characters Build Fandom. Fandom Helps Gatorade Keep Winning the Hydration Race.
Gatorade Heroes turns elite athletes into larger-than-life forces whose powers reflect how they compete. The concept can extend across commercials, vertical content, episodic storytelling, packaging, activations, collectibles and future entertainment expansion.
Rainmaker
Water / flow / range / focus. Caitlin controls the weather and turns “wet” shooting language into a premium sports-fantasy lane.
Captain Bolt
Electricity / energy / impact / playmaking. Justin changes the charge of the game and becomes the explosive spark of the team-up universe.
Ice Commander
Ice / cool / control / clutch. Jayden stays calm when everything around him heats up, making him the cool center of the universe.
The Superhero Makes the Kid Want the Drink.
Imagine kids discovering Rainmaker, Ice Commander and Captain Bolt on YouTube, social media or a future streaming home. They do not only watch the athletes — they become fans of the characters.
Now those same kids show up at rec leagues, travel teams, tournaments and showcases telling their parents they want Gatorade. The character creates emotional attachment to the brand before the child ever thinks about marketing strategy. They want the drink because they want to be connected to the hero.
The hero creates the fandom. The fandom creates product pull. Gatorade becomes more than the bottle at the bench — it becomes part of the world the kid is choosing to belong to.
The Hero System Can Move Far Beyond the Screen.
- Vertical series
- 30-minute TV / streaming series
- Animation
- Toys + action figures
- McDonald’s Happy Meal toy potential
- Collectible bottles
- Limited-edition athlete packaging
- Comics + graphic novels
- Collectible cards
- Video games + mobile games
- Apparel
- Costumes
- Retail displays
- School activations
- College activations
- Professional sports activations
- Hero awards
- Fan experiences
- Live events
- Annual hero introductions
- Licensing opportunities
The Commercial Order Matters.
The first commercials establish the individual powers. Then the spots begin crossing over, quietly teasing that Jayden, Caitlin and Justin belong to something bigger: a possible Gatorade Heroes universe built to win the hydration race.
Cool Jayden Establishes Ice.
“Cool Jayden” and “Cool Jayden: Heat Timeout” establish Jayden Daniels as the athlete who stays cold when everything around him gets hot. These two commercials build his identity before any crossover begins.
Make It Rain Establishes the Storm.
“Make It Rain” introduces Caitlin Clark’s rain-and-storm lane on its own. The audience gets to understand her power before another hero steps into her world.
That Was Wet Shows Jayden Watching Caitlin.
Now Jayden appears in the tunnel watching Caitlin. It can play like a quick cameo, but it is the first signal that these Gatorade commercials occupy the same universe.
Jayden and Caitlin Watch Justin Jefferson.
The very next commercial escalates the idea. Jayden and Caitlin are together at Justin Jefferson’s game watching him. Now the audience understands Jayden’s earlier appearance was not random. The heroes are scouting the next one, and the team is starting to assemble.
That is the connected tease: establish Jayden, establish Caitlin, let Jayden cross into Caitlin’s world, then put Jayden and Caitlin together to watch Justin. Each commercial can still work independently while also feeding a larger entertainment universe for Gatorade.
Five Commercials. One Expanding Universe.
The order below reflects the connected tease structure.
Cool Jayden
The introduction to Jayden’s “ice” lane — calm, composed and untouched by the heat around him.
Open Script →Cool Jayden: Heat Timeout
The stadium is burning up. Jayden stays cold. The ice identity becomes even clearer.
Open Script →Make It Rain
Caitlin’s rain-and-storm identity is established first. The weather escalates inside the arena while she stays calm and in control.
Open Script →That Was Wet
Jayden appears in the tunnel watching Caitlin. What looks like a cameo becomes the first connective tease into the larger Gatorade Heroes universe.
Open Script →They’ve Been Watching
Immediately after Jayden is seen watching Caitlin, Jayden and Caitlin appear together at Justin Jefferson’s game watching him — confirming the crossover and teasing the next Gatorade Hero.
Open Script →Gatorade Heroes — Win the Hydration Race
The core hero-universe deck covering the trinity, character logic, franchise expansion and platform opportunity.
Open Deck →Gatorade Heroes — The Dehydrators
If the universe expands into a fuller series, this deck introduces the villain system and recurring conflict structure.
Open Villains Deck →Two Additional Commercials. Ten Total Across the Proposal.
These two PepsiCo spots broaden the cultural and emotional range of the proposal beyond the eight sports-centered commercials inside Outside The Lines and Gatorade Heroes.
Delivering Days
Santa spends Christmas Eve doing what the world knows him for: delivering. But this version quietly connects those dream-filled holiday moments to Pepsi, Gatorade and the wider PepsiCo family, before the emotional turn lands back at home with Mrs. Claus.
Why it works: it gives Pepsi a holiday story with warmth, heart, recognizable iconography and natural portfolio integration.
Open Pepsi Christmas Commercial →Here Come Dorito
A Friday-inspired Super Bowl comedy built around one unmistakable California sound: a squeaky little bike coming down the block.
Why this is good for the culture: next year’s Super Bowl is in California, and Ice Cube is releasing Friday next year. That timing creates a rare collision of football, California comedy culture and franchise nostalgia that Doritos can tap into at exactly the right moment.
It is not just a funny spot. It is a culture-aware Super Bowl opportunity built around recognizable West Coast DNA and a piece of entertainment language people already feel.
Open Doritos Super Bowl Pitch →Add Missing The Pieces Studios to PepsiCo’s Roster of Trusted Creative + Strategic Partners.
Beginning with sports, hydration and culture-led opportunity, Missing The Pieces Studios would serve as a specialized partner focused on athlete strategy, original IP, branded entertainment, youth and community, franchise development and cross-functional activation.
We are not looking to replace PepsiCo’s internal teams or existing agency partners. We are looking to add another creative engine to the ecosystem — one built to originate stories, characters, platforms and cultural properties PepsiCo can help activate and scale.
We Build Beyond the Endorsement.
Athletes should not only appear in campaigns. The right athlete can become the center of a story, character, franchise, platform, community initiative or cultural property that consumers choose to follow long after the original advertisement ends.
Build Beyond the Endorsement.
Identify athletes and cultural voices that fit each brand and build long-term strategies around them beyond traditional endorsements.
Build Stories That Can Become Properties.
Develop commercials, vertical series, docuseries, animation, entertainment concepts and recurring original properties and brand platforms.
Turn Relationships Into Culture.
Turn athlete relationships into recognizable characters, stories, campaigns and cultural moments.
Build Where the Next Generation Already Is.
Build connections through schools, youth sports, campuses, tournaments, HBCUs and community initiatives.
Move Successful Ideas Beyond the Screen.
Expand successful properties into gaming, merchandise, collectibles, licensing, entertainment and live experiences.
Connect the Entire Ecosystem.
Connect Creative, Brand, Sports Marketing, Social, PR, Experiential and Commercial teams around a unified content strategy.
Add Another Powerful Source of Original Ideas.
PepsiCo already works with world-class creative agencies, production companies, media partners and specialists. Missing The Pieces Studios adds a complementary capability to that ecosystem: a specialized source of athlete strategy, original IP, branded entertainment and franchise-ready concepts.
We can originate the central idea, athlete strategy, story world, characters and content architecture — then collaborate with PepsiCo’s internal teams and other agency partners to develop, produce, activate and scale the work.
From there, PepsiCo’s internal teams and agency partners can help develop, produce, distribute, activate and scale approved work across creative, production, social, media, experiential, retail, PR, community and entertainment.
We originate stories built to become bigger than campaigns. PepsiCo and its broader agency ecosystem help bring them to life, activate them and scale them.
Specialized Origination · Collaborative Development · Global ScaleYou bring the brands. You bring the athletes. You bring the scale.
Missing The Pieces Studios brings the strategy, stories and IP-building engine.