When Energy Drink Marketing Gets Desperate

The economy is in the tank and the energy drink business has lost is luster. But things were not great for Coca-Cola Amatil's Mother energy drink even before the financial melt down. Coca-Cola Amatil is the the Australian bottler and distributer for Coca-Cola products in Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Indonesia. In 2006, Coca-Cola Amatil released Mother to compete against V and Red Bull. After 18 months of lack luster sales and numerious bad reviews concerning taste and cost, Coca-Cola Amatil took action and changed the forumla for Mother to make it more palatable while doubling the size of the can to 500 mL and keeping the price per can fixed.

Desperate times require desperate measures, so in June of 2008 some bright lad or lass in the Coca-Cola Amatil marketing department green lighted a commercial featuring a surplus Centurion Main Battle Tank crushing a truck filled with 10,000 cans of the old Mother energy drink. You know a company is desperate when they publicly destroy their old products to convince would be customers to buy their new and improved offering.

No word if all the boys and girls in Australia and New Zealand rushed out to the store to stock up on the new and improved Mother energy drink. No references to Mother can now be found on the Coca-Cola Amatil corporate website, but at least we have the commerical to enjoy on YouTube.