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›› OTHER FUNCTIONS
While 5-Hour Energy continues to run strong by packaging caffeine, niacin and B-vitamins in small bottles, a handful of firms have used the 2-4 oz. screw-tops as a platform to deliver other functions.
The emerging anti-energy beverage trend, for example, quickly diversified into shots. Funktional Beverages, Inc., which launched its 16 oz. relaxation brand Purple Stuff last July, added a shot just three months later. Tim Lucas, the company’s chief marketing officer, said the shot is not only performing well, but has created more excitement than its parent product did. It’s also quickly catching up to the parent product’s sales, Lucas said.
Lucas said he sees room for other functions in shots. His firm recently released Red Stuff – a more traditionally energy shot – and Lucas said the company will continue to roll out more color-coded functions in the future.
But, where Funktional Beverages is introducing one product at a time, PurBlu Beverages (better known for its Give line of charitable bottled waters), has taken the shotgun approach. At the 2009 Natural Products Expo West, the company announced a six SKU line called Potion Herbal Remedy. The line includes both an energy shot (in this case called “Power”) and a relaxation shot (called “Calm”), but it also includes “Detox,” “Focus,” “Burn,” and “Immunity.”
The idea, according to company founder Ben Lewis, is to offer consumers exactly what function they need in an easy, small-volume format.
“I don’t really need much more energy on a day to day basis,” Lewis said. “but I need more focus. I’m the first to admit that.... Other people need other functionalities.”
Both Lucas and Lewis say that their shots don’t directly compete with 5-Hour Energy and, instead, bring new consumers into the category.
But Carl Sperber director of marketing for 5-Hour Energy said that energy is what Americans want.
“I think most Americans think it’s their birthright to be tense and uptight,” Sperber said, “and they don’t mind it.”
Even if other functional shots are a way to bring incremental sales into the category, Sperber said, 5-Hour will be sticking to energy for the near future.