Being the Lizard King: A Profile of South Beach Beverages

SoBe consumers don't just drink the wellness beverage, they live it. South Beach Beverages' SoBe brand, with its trademark lizard icon, has quickly blazed its way into retail channels and garnered shelf space and consumer loyalty. The company combines fruit blends and tears with herbal ingredients and catchy names like "Lizard Fuel" to carve out a distinctive image for itself and its consumers.Creating a whole new healthy refreshment category, the Norwalk, Conn.-based company's success hasn't gone unnoticed. In fact, the company is battling its competitors, like Snapple Beverages' Elements line and AriZona Beverages, on a store by store basis. With 60% of SoBe's sales coming from the c-store channel, no store is too small.Right up to the head lizard, the company takes P-O-P very seriously. John Bello, founder and ceo of the company, has been known to visit stores and slap SoBe bottle stickers on cooler doors and windows."Our ceo is the lizard who is in the field the most," says Billy Bishop, vice president of marketing. "He is always running around making sure the point-of-sale is up. He really makes it a number-one priority. It doesn't do any good if it's sitting in the trunk of a car or sitting in the distributor's warehouse."In 1997, the company -- which had been marketing a line of caffeinated fruit drinks under the South Beach Beverages name -- reorganized its focus and image. Bello took notice of healthful trends and alternative, herbal remedies in the marketplace and decided to formulate harbalized teas and juice blends. The lizards were an early part of that vision and became the symbol for the company. "That was the birth of SoBe and the birth of the lizard logo. We've been running ever since," says Bishop.The lizard icon has enabled the company to sidestep traditional beverage marketing that focuses on flavor, and instead, target the lifestyle of the consumer. Highly visible on P-O-P, the SoBe lizards have worked to charm distributors and retailers into carrying the product, while also intriguing consumers enough to try the product for the first time, which is a considerable challenge with any new product or brand."I think at the time that we introduced this brand, there really wasn't much out there that was new, exciting and different," says Bishop. "Right away, we struck a chord with our distributors and retailers that we were giving them something different to sell."A lot of traditional beverage companies focus their point-of-purchase on the image of the bottle or they'll use images of fruit that try to speak to the flavor of a particular product," Bishop adds. "We're lucky because we've created a brand through the lizards that speaks not only to our beverages, but also to a lifestyle."This Ain't No ChameleonBishop refers to the company's P-O-P as "funky functional." He's quick to point out that brand imagery and consumer appeal isn't enough to gain placement in-store. P-O-P has to look good, but it also has to serve the distributors and retailers. Ultimately, P-O-P has to be functional and add something to the consumer experience that reflects well on the retailer."You have to be funky to catch people's attention and yet, you have to be functional to get point-of-sale materials up in the first place so retailers will be happy to place it and there will be some payback as to what these products are all about," says Bishop. "The object of our point-of-sale is to get consumers to open up the cold box and pick up our product. We do that with our imagery, our fun slogans and with our herbal benefits. [Our P-O-P] hits first from an image standpoint, then from a fun standpoint and thirdly, from a functional/benefit standpoint. When consumers pick up the bottle, they can read all the intricacies of what we're all about. We pride ourselves on consumer interaction."That interaction includes printing the company's Web site address on every piece of P-O-P and on bottles so consumers can continue their association with the SoBe brand after they leave the store. "We're just getting bombarded," says Bishop. "We're getting close to a million and a half hits a month just based on consumers wanting to come to our site and communicate with us."The appeal of the SoBe brand spans across a large age range, from trendy teens to health-oriented baby boomers. Bishop says by focusing on different aspects of the lizards, the brand can have a broad appeal. "Some of our products, like Lizard Blizzard and Lizard Fuel, may appeal to a younger generation," he says. "Our fruit blends and teas tend to appeal to a little bit of an older generation."Regardless of the targeted market or individual product, Bishop makes sure that all P-O-P conveys a consistent image and brand integrity. "Our P-O-P is a direct reflection of the personality of the company. We can take the lizards and put them on a golf bag or on a snowboard for a dealer loader," says Bishop. "That works really well as an end aisle display at retail."Bishop also highlights the herb-enriched qualities of the beverages on P-O-P. On bottles and on P-O-P, the name of the product reflects its supposed effect, such as Energy, Elixir, Wisdom, Karma and Drive."The herbs give us another neat benefit because there is a story to be told there as far as what the supposed functional properties and benefits are. A combination of the lizards and the herbal ingredients give us a unique brand image that drives all of our point-of-sale ideas."Working in tandem, the images, functional properties and catchy names give the company a distinctive edge. "We have fun with the names of our products and our slogans, like 'Ride Hard Stay Hard' for our Lizard Fuel products," says Bishop. "I think that gets a chuckle from people when they see it on the cooler door. It also speaks to the fact that, hey, this is an energy drink. We have our lizard hammering on his mountain bike and the herbs in the product support energy."Bishop breaks down the company's P-O-P offerings into two categories -- paper P-O-P and display P-O-P. The paper group includes table tents, logo stickers, static clings, vinyl stickers and anything that gets placed on cooler doors or on store surfaces. Much of this is found in c-stores and represents the bulk of the company's in-store advertising.Display P-O-P includes barrel coolers, pole toppers and display racks, generally designed for supermarkets and larger retailers. The company also takes advantage of dealer loader programs where sporting goods and SoBe-sponsored events are tied into a promotion. "As part of our whole SoBe lifestyle, we sponsor a mountain bike racing team, so we use mountain bikes as display items at retail where consumers can enter to win one in a raffle," says Bishop. "Right now, we're offering golf bags and snowboards on displays. That's another form of point-of-sale because it all ties in with the essence of the brand."T-shirt promotions have also been very successful for the company. Advertised in-store, consumers can collect bottle caps and redeem them for T-shirts branded with the SoBe name and logo. "The key thing that you can see in all of our pieces is that the branding stays consistent. You can't miss the lizard and the SoBe name and the healthy refreshment tie-in," says Bishop.The concepts for all P-O-P are fostered in-house. Art Director Jeremy Brittain, along with Bishop, conceive and execute most of the designs. The company also gets design input and creative services from Sierra Communications, Westport, Conn. Tom Morton, production manager, coordinates projects with P-O-P suppliers."We don't have a ton of people," says Bishop. "We believe in making sure the branding is there and the essence is there. I think the only way you can do that is to have it be internally driven. We come up with all the concepts in-house and use all the resources we have out there to help execute it."Brook & Whittle, Branford, Conn., produces the company's paper P-O-P. A variety of producers are used for display items, based on their areas of expertise, including Display Technologies, College Point, N.Y.; Glacier Cooler Co., Danbury, Conn.; and NYSCO Products Inc., Bronx, N.Y.For each new product that enters the marketplace, the company designs P-O-P to reflect the image of each flavor. Each new SKU is supported with three to five pieces of P-O-P, with two to four new products introduced each quarter. This typically includes static clings and cooler sticker decals that announce the new product.Appealing to retailers, the company also produces flavor stickers that are placed on the back of glide racks in coolers, visible only to employees. This helps retailers know where to refill the product when they are out-of-stock and also helps secure SoBe's position on the rack, discouraging retail employees from stocking the rack with a different product."Our main goal for this year from a sales standpoint is to try and get that second and third shelf that competitors have right now," says Bishop. "We think we deserve that shelf and we have a lot of IRI data that backs that up. If we can put together aggressive plans and show retailers that we're going to be a profitable item for them, then we can get that space."From a P-O-P perspective, the company is attempting to gain placement for SoBe-branded coolers at retail. Last month, the company introduced its first-ever neon sign to c-store accounts. The sign was produced by The Neon Source, San Diego."The challenge is coming up with things that the retailer likes to put up, that will drive traffic in their accounts, and that involve the consumer," says Bishop. "I think everyone can get hit with the same look and the same feel day in and day out. [P-O-P] sort of falls into the background and just becomes part of the local scenery. You have to constantly think of ways to involve the consumer."Since we don't do a lot of traditional advertising, per se, consumers are finding out about us through our point-of-sale," he adds. "We really feel it's important to communicate effectively on every piece of P-O-P that we develop."

Being the Lizard King: A Profile of South Beach Beverages

P2PI MEMBERS

JOIN P2PI

Related Images

Business Topic

Market Segment