Marketing Technology Rollout with Global Event Marketing Orchestration

Gatorade Latin America partnered with Nobox to create the digital strategy supporting the annual Gatorade 5v5 youth soccer tournament, a global competition for athletes ages 14–16. The tournament began with local elimination rounds across 17 participating countries before culminating in the Global Finals in Barcelona. On average, the tournament engaged more than 50,000 youth athletes worldwide.

The implementation required launching Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement while simultaneously building the communications platform that would manage the complete player journey from registration through the Global Finals.

The team wanted to create a consistent global experience using centralized marketing while allowing each country's bottler to manage local tournament rules and operations. The platform had to support:

• WhatsApp-based Player recruitment and registration
• Transactional and marketing communications
• Country-specific tournament logistics
• Multi-language messaging
• Global coordination while supporting local execution

The project combined two major initiatives into a single delivery effort. First, implement Salesforce Marketing Cloud Engagement as a new platform. At the same time, use the new platform to support a live, international sporting event with immovable deadlines.

Every communication had to account for:

• 17 participating countries tournament schedules and localized rules
• Three supported languages (English, Spanish, and Portuguese)
• Four tournament phases with teams exiting at each phase
• Variations in local tournament operations while preserving a consistent global experience

Because native WhatsApp integration did not yet exist within Salesforce Marketing Cloud, the team also designed and implemented a custom WhatsApp registration solution that became the primary registration channel for players.

Becky served as Project Manager and Business Analyst for the Salesforce Marketing Cloud implementation, partnering closely with Gatorade Latin America and Nobox tournament operations and overall marketing strategy. Working with a lean implementation team, she translated the creative vision into scalable technical requirements while leading the successful implementation of a brand-new marketing platform.

As the business analyst, Becky partnered with stakeholders across Gatorade LATAM, Nobox, and 17 country bottlers to define the business processes and communication journeys that would support the tournament from initial player registration through the Global Finals. She gathered and documented requirements for four distinct tournament phases—Recruitment, Pre-Local Tournament, Road to Barcelona, and Global Finals—ensuring the platform could accommodate country-specific tournament operations while maintaining a consistent global experience.

Beyond the implementation itself, Becky coordinated and helped design the WhatsApp registration pathways. This included the development of multiple registration paths and relevant transactional notifications adapted to each player's status throughout their tournament journey.

The team successfully delivered both the Marketing Cloud implementation and the supporting communications ecosystem on schedule and on budget.

50,000 youth athletes registered before the tournament was interrupted after play had begun across participating countries.

The platform enabled:

• End-to-end player communications
• Multi-language messaging
• Automated transactional notifications
• Country-specific operational flexibility
• A first-of-its-kind custom WhatsApp registration experience built before native Salesforce support existed

Although the 2020 tournament was suspended two weeks after launch due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the platform and communication framework were preserved and successfully used when the tournament resumed in 2022.