A new energy drink called “Cocaine” has been launched. I went to DrinkCocaine.com after seeing an interview on CNN with someone related to the product. During the quick interview, I thought the questioning was stupid, the desire to “get people” make someone look like the bad guy was large, and the branding was amazing. The person being interviewed did a great job of responding and representing his product well. Because of the name, there are all sorts of outrage. I don’t support any sort of illegal drug use. I do support free speech, even if I disagree with the message. This is a legal energy drink. It is not an illegal drug. I am not a fan of energy drinks. However, this in particular, is some amazing branding. See below from their web site…
September 24th, 2006, Midnight
Letter to Visitors:
I would like to thank the millions of visitors to our website over the past seven days. There was no way we could have ever imagined the overwhelming response we have received this past week in response to the release of our new energy drink “Cocaine(tm)”.
I would also like to apologize for the outages we experienced during the week. Our server was overloaded and the website and email had to be shutdown until a new server and a wider pipe could be put in to place to handle the load. We had a total of 6,738,165 web hits from Sunday through Saturday.
We received thousands of requests to join the mailing list for our news letter. We will be putting together our first news letter over the weekend and will post it to the list sometime Monday.
We have added a list of locations to the website where the drink can be purchased in New York and in Los Angeles .
You will be able to purchase drinks online from our website via Amazon very soon. We will keep you posted on when orders can be taken.
Again, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to review our website and to welcome us to the market with such fervor. Please come back to www.DrinkCocaine.com to find out what’s new.
Thank you for your patience and support,
Jamey Kirby
Senior Partner/Founder
Redux Beverages, LLC
Source: The Cocaine Energy Drink – DrinkCocaine.com
UPDATE: Fixed a couple typos and clarified “get people” to say “make someone look like the bad guy” in efforts to make sure it referenced the interviewer, not the interviewee or the brand or the product. I though the line of questions and attitude of the CNN interviewer was pandering to over-zealous parents that think someone else besides them is responsible for parenting and raising one’s own children, and not rooted in getting the story out. I thought she was trying to make a story rather than tell one. I also added the Rants, Perspective and Writing tags, now that this update is a little more boisterous. 
Filed under: Blogging, Perspective, Rants, Writing
Now I know why I can’t sleep.
You must have missed the YouTube video in Redux founder Jamey Kirby’s MySpace site, where they promote the drink as if it’s being sold by a drug dealer out of the trunk of a car.
Some liberals confuse liberalism with having “no limits”. This company doesn’t care how many people’s lives have been ruined by Cocaine the illegal drug. How many people & their families have been shot execution style over it in countries that produce it. Sure, free speech & the first amendment speak directly to the issue of whether or not one CAN say something, but does not address whether or not they SHOULD.
Promoting cocaine is heartless, lame, & irresponsible. It is immoral & completely selfish. Redux makes no bones about the fact that they are glamorizing the drugs effects, & marketing to teenagers. They leave out the part about how many people have been zipped up in body bags over Cocaine as an illegal drug though. Why? Well because they are of the same ilk as drug dealers. They only care about how much money it will make them.. Not who it hurts in the process..
No Class.. Period. ~Dan Lee
Dan~ I hear and understand your perspective. I acknowledge and respect your opinion. I also think it’s still brilliant branding.
Amazing Grace is an awesome song. It was written to an old bar tune.
There is always another perspective! Thanks for sharing yours. ~Toby