Here come the copy cats!
Friday, June 27, 2008Living Essentials introduced 5-Hour Energy in September of 2004. It was a big gamble for us. Months of research, testing and re-testing had gone into the product, but would people buy it? GNC agreed to test market for us and as the first few cases left our building we held our collective breath.
It started in March of that year. A few of us were representing our first product, Chaser – Freedom from Hangovers, at a trade show. During a break, our CEO tried his first energy drink. I don’t remember the brand but I do remember his reaction. Wide-eyed and a little jumpy he blabbered away about how good he felt. This went on for about an hour, then splat, it was over. His eyes drooped. His body sagged. He had crashed.
This experience got us talking. What was it like? How would you make it better? What kind of energy drink would we make? From this conversation we developed the concept for 5-Hour Energy. Six months later we had the first version nailed down. The two-ounce energy shot was born.
Sales at GNC grew from zero to 10,000 bottles per week in no time. We knew the product had legs. Sales continued to grow.
No hit goes uncopied, and within a couple of years 5-Hour Energy was copied, almost verbatim. Unscrupulous competitors copied our formula, copied our directions and warnings, then cleverly (I jest) added an hour or two to their product names. Although these competitors have become numerous, they have been small time operators trying to ride our coat tails. Allow me to put the word “small” into perspective for you. Sales of 5-Hour Energy exceed the combined sales of the 28, or so, other two-ounce energy shot brands by three to one. Sales of 5-Hour Energy exceed the number two competitor by ten to one.
But now some of the biggest names in the energy drink and beverage industries are introducing their own energy shots. Coca-Cola has recently introduced a shot version of its NOS and Full Throttle brands. Pepsi has released a shot version of Amp. Monster has also gotten into the act. Red Bull says they are releasing their shot in 2009.
To this new crop of late comers we say, “Bring it.”
