hI'm a little late with this one, but I just read this MediaPost story about Cocaine, the new energy drink that has 350x the caffeine of Red Bull. (Yum, liquid migraine.)
Regardless of how good or bad the stuff is, they've gained national recognition with a marketing budget of less than $40.
"Our entire marketing and promotional investment in the launch was $37.50," says Jamey Kirby, senior partner and founder of Redux Beverages, Las Vegas, which launched the controversial brand Sept. 9 during Fashion Week in New York "That's what we paid a courier to deliver a case to the New York Post."
Between a contraversial product name, a product that should sit on shelves somewhere between Stacker2 and "Jackass" DVDs, and a brilliant marketing team sporting a serious pair, Cocaine has become a true WOM marketing success.
While not all PR is good PR, Cocaine is basking in the glow of inevitable medical warnings, parental outrage and the prestige of government attention. When you're targeting the cool kids, the more ire you can raise, the better, it seems.
So, although this product is likely to be pulled from shelves (or at least black-boxed) in the very near future, it's going gangbusters during its bi-coastal rollout. Nevermind that it allegedly tastes like sick and is likely to cause a premature death via ventricular fibrilation. It's cool.
Good or bad, when you get mentions in the New York Times, the Daily Mail and pretty much every other major news outlet on $37.50 -- you're doing something right. Most products couldn't withstand the flames fueled by Cocaine, but this product is in a place where the more contraversy it stirs, the better it looks to its target audience.
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