Gerry’s Insights The Gospel According to Body Armor

The Gospel According to Body Armor

OK, as I sat down to write this, Coca-Cola made its

move and bought the rest of Body Armor. So that sports drink’s principals, Lance Collins and Mike Repole, has each scored another spectacular exit. By now you know the details. So what I’ll do here is glean a handful of lessons from this brand’s journey to success from its debut as a heavily engineered but expensive and challenging-tasting “Super Drink” to reinvigorator of a complacent sports drink segment.

Nobody’s too big to be a team player. Entrepreneurs have big egos. They need them. The best also know when to put them aside, at least a bit. So Collins handing off his Body Armor project to Repole represented an acknowledgement that his original Super Drink concept might not be as well attuned to trends as Repole’s counter-idea of overtly being a sports drink. Kudos on that one to Lance. Luckily, he found ways to keep himself out of trouble. Core Water? Zen WTR? Adrenaline Shoc? My Muse? Heard of any of those?

Leaders are swashbucklers, not spreadsheet jockeys.

Over the years, former employees of both Repole and Collins have confi ded to me after their adventurous rides, Who needs a boss who relentlessly drives you and calls at all hours if he stumbles across an out-of-stock? I’ve heard the same from distributors. Then, next venture – guess what? They’re back. Beverages is a war, and its foot soldiers relish working for take-no-prisoners types who work as hard as they do. That dynamic is a real competitive advantage of startups over corporate giants. Sure, data is now an important part of the game. But for inspiring the troops, spreadsheet jockeys need not apply.

Even swashbucklers have discipline. Even if you have abundant resources and are willing to roll the dice, stay disciplined. Repole, for example, was quick to recognize that Body Armor needed a lower-sugar extension but resisted the clamor of retailers, distributors (and journalists) until he could get the core brand right. To paraphrase the old Gallo Wine tagline, we will sell no extensions before their time.

Sheer staying power trumps genius. Never underestimate the value of having the personal resources and investor cred to stay in the game. When big winners speaking at conferences order fl edgling entrepreneurs to “go big or go home,” that’s not relevant advice to most listeners. But it is for themselves: they can muster their own resources and outside capital to weather the storms, tweaking the product and positioning until it works. Having those nine lives is a deserved advantage born of their prior successes, if not one most entrepreneurs can rely on.

Evolutionary, not revolutionary. It helps not to be too far ahead of the consumer – evolutionary rather than revolutionary, is the word. There is nothing breakthrough about Body Armor – but that turned out to be an asset not a liability. That’s particularly true at a time that the strategics, and particularly Coke, seem to be disenchanted with bleeding-edge innovation that requires a long runway, is a poor fi t with their systems and may have a teeny TAM (total addressable market).

Not disincented by not-invented. Let’s give Coke credit: it’s been plying Powerade in sports drinks for nearly three decades now and might have been excused for not being receptive to new concepts. But it seems over the “not invented here” syndrome that can cloud big companies’ thinking. Recall, KO earlier encouraged its Honest Tea brand to venture an Honest Sport entry a few years back, then jumped at the clearer opportunity with Body Armor. Body Armor’s premium positioning may salvage a meaningful role for Powerade as a more value-oriented sibling.

Endorsers are always a crapshoot so try to make sure

they’re worth the risk. Picking athlete and entertainer endorsers is a crapshoot. Even careful vetting can be undone when stuff happens. Remember FRS Energy, which enlisted Lance Armstrong and Tim Tebow, only to see both become punchlines? If you’re going to take the gamble, seek out partners who have something to contribute beyond their social media followings. Body Armor hit the jackpot with Kobe Bryant, truly one of a kind, brilliant in many realms, a multilinguist who produced charming animated fi lms. And credit the late Lakers great with having the shrewdness to recognize that with Repole, despite his unconventional resume, he’d be learning from the best.

In sampling, there is such a thing as TMI. First, an anecdote. On jury duty once, I swung my peers to convicting a murderer by recalling a detail that they didn’t from the testimony of a key witness. They recalled the teen saying there was a dispute on a busy street, the skinny guy pushed the big guy, the big guy pulled out a gun and everybody ran. I recalled it differently: the skinny guy pushed the big guy, everybody ran, then the big guy pulled out the gun. What’s the difference? That bystanders fl ed right after the push showed they knew the big guy was a baddie who carried a gun. That cleared up a few mysteries and we convicted him. So the order matters! Similarly, when Collins met me in New York in 2010 with samples of his new drink, he fi rst listed the dozens of functional ingredients he’d crammed into the recipe, then offered me a taste. “Terrifi c!” I said, realizing what a feat it had been to make the drink palatable. Actually, it didn’t taste so hot, except that my judgment had been clouded by the info Collins provided. That led me to give him bad advice. So, in sampling a new drink, fi rst give a taste, then explain.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this wisdom. For my next column, I may offer a rundown of companies that succeeded by violating each of these precepts. Let’s face it, in beverages, all the lessons are meant to be forgotten. Such a weird and wonderful business we’re in.

Longtime beverage-watcher Gerry Khermouch is executive editor of Beverage Business Insights, a twice-weekly e-newsletter covering the nonalcoholic beverage sector.