The Redux Beverage Company announced this week that they will rename it's Cocaine Energy Drink, following a declaration from the FDA that the energy drinks marketing campaign in illegal.
It's obvious that a name like Cocaine was not a unanimous pick for the Redux Soft Drink Company. I believe they had several rounds of internal debate on that one. But, maybe the marketing department wanted to:
A. Create a buzz and plenty of WOM exposure
B. Instill a 'macho' sense in the drink to pull in the target audience (teenagers) who would say - Go get a Cocaine dude!
But whatever their noble objective was ....I am astonished to learn that the drink doesn't contain any trace of Cocaine in it(ha,ha) So what remains to be seen is how Redux could get the similar brand personality back into a new name and it's certainly not possible by renaming the drink maybe... LSD - Legalized Soft Drink.
The bottom-line is - Cocaine as a brand name associates negativity and no brand name that associates negativity with it can ever succeed, particularly in a long term perspective. All these energy drink marketers are quite envious of the success of Red Bull and they try to replicate it often without a consistent branding strategy.
What do you think...
1 comment:
I would assume that getting slammed by the FDA was the original idea. Free press, big buzz around having to change the name. Plus it positions them as being edgy to the target consumer (teenagers).
Post a Comment