The can catches your attention with it's great design; but what's it called?
ARIZONA RESPONDS TO THE REVIEW:
Jeff,
Thanks for taking the time to write up something about that product. There
has been much debate within our own company about the multiple names on the
product design from the very start. We'll see what happens.
Feel free to do a review of our Green Tea Energy Drinks. Personally I think
the Pomegranate Green Tea Energy drink is great.
As for the website, we've known for a long time how bad it is. The guy who
built it had connections to the owner. We are actually building new site
right now that is completely modern and has a really cool design. It should
be up and running by 2/07. When it's up and running feel free to contact me
and tell me what you think.
Thanks,
Jim Gunther
AriZona Beverages
I told Jim that I'm looking forward to it and to again rescue Caution Energy. I'm an Arizona Fan as far as their tea line, if they can break into the Energy Drink game then all the better. |
COMPANY: Arizona Beverage Co.
CAN DESIGN: The can design is eye catching, one of the best I've seen. The only problem is I was confused as to the name of the drink? Is it "Caution"? Is it "Arizona Performance"? Is it "Caution, Extreme Energy Shot Performance Energy Drink"? C'mon guys, this is marketing 101. Choose a simple name and stick with it. There's verbiage all over the damn can and nothing stands out above the rest so you know what the drink is called.
From the website I gather it is called "Caution Energy" which is not laid out very well on the can. The problem stems from the design. "Caution" is about the same size as "Extreme Energy Shot" so that your eye doesn't know what to latch onto as far as the name of the drink. It should be Caution--big and bold--and in a small subtitle Extreme Energy Shot and ditch the Performance Energy Drink line at the bottom, it's redundant. Or better yet Caution: Extreme Energy Drink --big and bold and forget all the rest. Or even better than that: Caution: Arizona Extreme.
I can hear a kid saying, "Hey dude, I'm going to grab me an Arizona Extreme." But can you imagine a kid saying, "I'm going to buy me some Caution Extreme."??
From a name perspective, it's a mess. It looks like the ad team couldn't decide on what to say and so they included it all. Great Can design, confusing titles. Simplify the name and leave the can design alone.
CAN DETAILS: 16 FL OZ, 240 Calories. And one other note about the name. An energy shot is usually not 16 FL OZ. An energy shot comes in a small can like BooKoo Energy Shots at 5.75 OZ . In general a shot is small, not large.
PRICE: 2.29 at Walgreens. Friggin' expensive. Y'know, I thought all of the competition would drive the price of drinks down but not so at Walgreens.
WEBSITE: www.ArizonaBev.com . The website is amateur hour. It looks like a modified template bought from an online template warehouse that came from the late nineties. Awful color scheme--I felt like I was looking at someone's hobby site hosted on geocities.
I'm tough on this point because if you are distributing a major drink line why would you go cheap on the website? I can understand a Ma and Pa grocery store doing that but not Arizona Bev Co. They also seemed to have some missing pics issues.
There's nothing to do there. The only content is if you want to buy some clothing with Arizona logos on them. If you're going to enter the Soda Wars (energy drinks in general) you got to match your can hype with site hype. Otherwise your energy drink is boring, even if does taste pretty good.
TASTE: Technically speaking Arizona is a Tea Company. I'm not sure they should even be entered into the soda wars. However, the drink is carbonated while their usual tea line isn't so I think it's fair to put them into the competition.
Here's the good news: Caution Energy is an original twist on a tea drink and an energy drink. It tastes good!
When I took my first sip I was expecting the punch of most energy drinks that hit you with a ton of sugar--but Caution Energy was mild. I felt like I hadn't tasted anything until the second sip. It has a nice blend of light carbonation, light citrus, and sweetness. A complete change from the usual energy drink. It won me over pretty quickly which is hard to do.
On a sidenote: I saw Milk Thistle on the ingredients list which sent a shiver down my sign. I'm lactose intolerant. Fortunately, Milk Thistle is a plant and has nothing to do with actual Milk. Read more at Wikipedia...
AFTERTASTE: A lemon tea aftertaste. Pleasant though.
SUSTAINED EFFECTS: Mild on the stomach too. Most energy drinks will wrap my stomachs in knots if I drink them in one sitting.
OVERALL: Confusing name, great can design, great taste, crappy website design with no content. A mixed bag overall. I recommend the drink because of the taste and nothing else. Arizona Bev Co. has to get it's marketing act together.
WOULD I BUY IT AGAIN? Yes, but not for 2.29 a can.
GENERAL COMMENTS: They got a winner here if only they'd realize it. I'm afraid this drink will disappear due to poor marketing and poor brand identification. I think in the end they should have used the caution symbols on the can and then just named the drink "Arizona Extreme". It would be easy to remember and easy to identify.
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