Power Trip Beverages: Adding An Extra Spark to Energy Drinks
April 1, 2006
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Power Trip Beverages:
Adding An Extra Spark to Energy Drinks
Adding An Extra Spark to Energy Drinks
By JENNIFER KOROLISHIN
As a longtime beverage
industry executive, Doug Stuart has seen many concepts and brands come and
go, but when he decided to start his own beverage company, one particular
category caught his eye.
“We looked at the energy drink category and
noticed that there wasn’t a brand that
was unique or different,” Stuart says. “Red Bull is a fine
company and brand leader, however, most new entries were very similar to
Red Bull. Working with our flavor house, we decided to develop a unique and
different energy drink with a flavor that appealed to a new demographic
— 16- to 29-year-old males and females.”
In 2004, Stuart decided to launch Miami, Fla.-based
Power Trip Beverages Inc. “We spent an entire year developing the
business plan, perfecting the flavor and finalizing the packaging of Power
Trip Xtreme Energy Drink before rolling the product out last year,”
he says.
“We saw the category emerging and growing, and
we wanted to go in with the ability to deliver results,” Stuart says.
“The most important thing to our success is that our company is
managed and operated by former beverage distributors and industry
professionals. We understand the beverage business very well from the
inside out.”
Powering through challenges
One of the challenges Stuart faced in developing a new
product for the increasingly crowded energy drink category was expanding
the segment’s relatively narrow target audience of males in their
mid-twenties.
“We wanted to make a product that reached a
target audience that was 16 to 29 years old, active, and both males and
females,” Stuart says. “Not just those interested in extreme
sports, but people who were looking for more of a mainstream flavor that
the other energy drinks didn’t offer.
“When we created our flavor, we wanted to make
it fun to drink, and after extensive testing we determined the blue color
related to our target demographics perfectly,” he adds. “Also,
and most importantly, the flavor profile had to appeal to both males and
females, be pleasurable to drink and have the ‘power’ expected
by the traditional energy drinker.”
Distribution also was critical to Power Trip’s
successful launch. Building a distribution network is one of the most
challenging aspects of any new beverage product, but it’s an area in
which Stuart’s industry experience proved pivotal.
“With a quality product, relationships and prior
distributor experience, we’ve been pretty fortunate to gain some very
significant distributors in the first year,” Stuart says. “We
do business with Dr Pepper, Budweiser, Coca-Cola and Miller distributors
and a few quality independent distributors. We wouldn’t have these
distributors if we didn’t have a quality product that was unique and
different.”
Stuart says Power Trip creates specific business plans
for each distributor, and with the team’s experience in the business,
it knows how important it is to fund marketing programs that will help
drive sales at the shelf level.
Currently, Power Trip is available in California,
upstate New York (including authorization in the Wegmans grocery chain),
and several Southeastern states as well as in Caribbean markets such as
Puerto Rico and Trinidad. Its primary distribution focus is on
single-serve, 10.5-ounce slim cans for sale in convenience stores. However,
because the company is working with numerous large distributors, Power Trip
is working to gain chain authorizations and is offering a new 16-ounce
four-pack tailored to the needs of supermarkets and other large-format
channels.
Power Trip “0”
To keep up with customer demand, Power Trip introduced
Power Trip “0,” a sugar-free and carb-free version of its
original product in January. “To our surprise, it’s now
representing over 40 percent of our sales, which is amazing,” Stuart
says.
Power Trip “0” is another step toward the
company’s goal of expanding the brand lineup to appeal to both males
and females and a wider age range. “More users are looking for
great-tasting sugar-free energy drinks, but have had bad diet energy drink
experiences,” Stuart says. “Power Trip ‘0’ is just
what it says — no sugar, no carbs — and once they drink it,
they love the taste.”
Powerful marketing
Much of Power Trip’s
marketing focuses on the product’s flavor as much as its
energy-promoting ingredients such as vitamins B6, B12 and C, taurine,
guarana and caffeine.
“From a marketing standpoint, it’s all
about, ‘How can we impact the marketplace 100 people at a
time?’” Stuart says. “Local events and retail pull
programs are a significant part of our marketing strategy. It’s a
wonderful opportunity to be in Wegmans; now we need to work with them and
other retailers to [entice consumers] to pull our products off the
shelf.”
Power Trip uses a very grassroots marketing strategy.
“[It’s] very local and it’s all about bringing our
consumer to the shelf, one person at a time,” Stuart says. Power
Trip’s advertising media, so far, has included Internet marketing,
special events and radio advertising, as well as point-of-purchase signage,
retail programs and on-premise efforts to promote the product as a mixer.
Recently, the company signed an exclusive sales and
marketing agreement with the Stockton “99” Speedway NASCAR race
track in Stockton, Calif. In keeping with its broad age demographic, the
company also supports youth concerns by donating a percentage of total
sales to Youth Crime Watch of America, the largest youth-led organization
in the United States.
Recognizing the importance of the on-premise market,
Power Trip frequently develops new drinks for bars to mix with Power Trip.
“With a flavor that appeals to such a broad audience, it was a
natural fit to use Power Trip as a mixer with vodka, rum and many other
types of liquor,” Stuart says. “The color makes Power Trip very
appealing when it’s presented in a clear glass in a bar
setting.”
“The on-premise market is a great sampling
vehicle for Power Trip, especially if the company can gain the endorsement
of bartenders,” he adds.
Consumers aren’t the only focus for Power Trip
marketing. Part of what it calls its 360-degree approach includes
communicating with distributors and retailers. It enhances its industry
connections through trade media and local print media within distributor
territories, as well as offering distributor incentive programs.
“In 2006, we really want to develop our current
distribution and to make sure that we invest in our markets,” Stuart
says. “We think we have an obligation to do that and it will be a
real key to our success.” BI
