Influx

Actor, song-writer and martial arts master, Steven Segal just launched his own line of energy drinks, adding yet another brand to an already crowded category.

Energy drinks first came to the US from Europe. The category creator, Red Bull grew up on the snowboarding slopes of the Alps, with the extreme crowd who took it with them into clubs and the rest is history.

The most interesting thing about the category is how open it is. There seems to be a new entrant every day.

One reason is the elasticity of the concept of energy. It’s obviously a critical component of any thriving culture in the United States. There isn’t a group or culture that is relevant to a young adult and youth audience that doesn’t possess energy. The micro brands understood this and exploited it, while the bigger guys including Red Bull stayed focused only in the extreme sports arena. The micro-brands come from the sub-cultures that define energy in a different way to extreme sports, for example:

Crunk Juice

“The creation of beats and hooks so powerful that the audience is instinctively moved to sway, dance, and lose themselves in the moment, gave birth to crunk music. Crunk identifies music so powerful a word hadn’t been produced for such a reaction until the imprint of crunk on the American consciousness.”

There are now over 1,000 brands in the energy drink marketplace, it’s micro-fragmentation to the max.

Although the category that is dominated by Red Bull, it’s a brand that doesn’t really advertise. Their strategy has been to support a few sub-cultures with grassroots activities. It appears that others are copying their tactics, but are creating products tailored to appeal strongly to small groups, e.g.- martial arts or hip-hop fans.

It will be interesting to see if these micro brand owners can be satisfied with a tiny market share, if consumers continue to support them and if the bigger beverage companies with large budgets can crush the smaller players.