I’m seeing a trend here…Like Inked at 7-11, GAzZu is the new exclusive energy drink at Circle K stores. The big difference here is that while Inked is manufactured by an unnamed company, GazZu is created by the geniuses at BooKoo. This drink exists solely to shred away a tiny bit of the market for themselves, and capture just a tiny bit of the growing energy drink market. “We wanted a wholly owned, 100-percent proprietary energy drink, not to compete — but to complement — the entire category,” said Russ Kidd, senior category manager of packaged beverages for Circle K Southeast.
This drink took only 15 months to go from concept to filling Circle K’s shelves. “We committed 10% of the GazZu marketing budget for sampling at local Saturday afternoon college games and we sponsored a Friday evening high school football TV program in Augusta, Ga.” Kidd continued. They also performed something most drinks never bother to do – market research. All their flavors were tested by 400 consumers, 80 percent of which were 30 or older — before the launch, Kidd said. The No. 1 flavor was citrus, followed by orange-mango and cherry. They did this also to try to appeal to both men and women – taking a very gender neutral approach to the entire line. Circle K wanted a 16-ounce can with a name that would “transcend both genders,” and “not be offensive to anyone,” he said. When asked where the GazZu name originated, Kidd told CSNews Online it was a long story.
This also explains why the lo-carb version is such a sell-out. It looks like no Market research was done on this one. This is a lo carb monster all the way. From the label to the color of the drink to the flavor. I am guessing the caffeine content is the same as their High Fructose filled ones, so that’s a plus, but there is about as much originality on this drink as in a Disney sitcom.
As for the name – “We went through probably 200 names and nothing really turned us on, so to speak. We came up with GazZu just kidding around,” he said. “You remember the Martian on ‘The Flintstones’ — his name was Gazoo. He was out of this world, and we were basing everything on a drink from out of this world. Someone mentioned his name and someone else said ‘Gazoo, that’s a cool name.'”
How does BooKoo feel about partnering with the second largest independent convenience store operator in North America? “We’re extremely excited to be partnering with a leading convenience store chain like Circle K,” said Dan Lee, president of BooKoo Energy. “The fact that they were so involved in the concept, research, development, marketing and throughout the creation of GazZu reinforces the strength of the partnership between Circle K and BooKoo, and will help to make GazZu a success.”
I am sure that being put in over 4,900 stores nationwide helps, but coming out with this boring knock off certainly doesn’t make me want to rush out and try the whole line. In fact, this might just drive me into a 7-11 for a cheap store-branded unique flavored can.
Buzz/Nutrition: 7
Gazzu has 120mg of caffeine per serving in their green cans. I am guessing that this one does too – which would make a good selling point over Diet Monster. The ingredients are nothing to boast about, with the usual EDM (energy drink mix) Bs, inositol, 2000mg of taurine and a BOATLOAD of sodium (16% of RDA). This is sweetened with glucose, and ( surprise surprise) sucralose. Someday they are going to find out sucralose does not dissolve in your stomach and I am going to end up with a 30lb ball of it in my gut from all these diet energy drinks. With the dozens of interesting ways to make a drink sweet, do they ALL need sucralose?
Taste:4
Diet monster in every way. Not sure the best way to wake people up is to bore their taste buds into submission. I hear the other flavors are tons better – and I really hope so, because this one might as well have been made by a million other companies.
Packaging:8
Cool looking 16 ounce can for a private label. The can is deep black with a bright blue G and some cosmic swirling crackling going on. “We knew that there was all these entries into the energy drink category. There’s a lot of great ones, a lot of great brands. We knew if we were going to do proprietary, we would have to stand up to the best out there,” Kidd told CSNews Online. To do that, Circle K invested money into the drink’s packaging. “We did not want this private label to look like a private label,” said Kidd. “We spent the extra money and effort to design the can, and create a first-class looking package.” – and kudos to them on this one. There is the website info as well, but why not put the caffeine content on the can too? the little story on the side is a bit TOO silly for it’s own good – and works against it. Still, much much better than other proprietary store brand stuff.
Website:http://www.gazzuenergy.com 3
Man! I am SO brought back to 1999! I love the cheese techno – and the big splash image with a big blue border. This is the best website 1999 had to offer, with the latest in Flash 4 technology. The silly song has a horrible loop after about a minute, and the animations play SO choppy I felt like i was on a 56k connection as well! I double dog anyone to listen to their site for the time it takes them to look up all four drinks information. You can not do it. The only thing I learned is they are sponsoring a race car. If ever you want to see why NOT to make a flash site, this is the reason! You would think that a giant like Circle K OR BooKoo would not let this thing out to the public.