JOLT COLA WHY CANT YOU KEEP UP!!!!

Remember Jolt Cola? It was the original energy drink.

Created in 1985, the brand was touted as the soft drink “with all the sugar and twice the caffeine” and proud of it. In essence, it was the first “energy drink” (before anyone knew what that was) to land in the American scene more than 20 years before anyone heard of Red Bull. And land it did Jolt was seen everywhere within a couple of years, from movies like Hackers, Jurassic Park, Wayne’s World 2, Asteroid, Men At Work & Gremlins to “small” towns across America.

Then the Energy Drink boom happened and Jolt decided that they were not going to compete with “ENERGY DRINKS” they were a cola after all.

Now Jolt and its parent company Wet Planet has had a lot of firsts in the industry. and I quote…

Wet Planet revolutionized the beverage industry by introducing value-added marketing. The notion of added ingredients inspired the formation of New Age Beverages (Energy Drinks).

Wet Planet was the first beverage company to uniformly utilize beer wholesalers as its primary method of distribution. This created an entire “new age beverage” distribution system that paved the way for thousands of brands that followed. Among them were Snapple, Arizona, SoBe, etc.

JOLT was the first soft drink to sell at a premium price above Coke and Pepsi. All previous competitors assumed the only way to entice consumers was to provide them with a product at a lower cost.

JOLT was the first-ever consumer good of any kind to list it’s website on all labels and packaging.

Wet Planet Beverages was the first soft drink company to implement a virtual store…selling beverages throughout the world through a storefront on a website.

JOLT was the first soft drink to embrace the information age. As a result, JOLT is a lifestyle soda and the first choice among the computer industry, internet users and virtual reality enthusiasts. For the past 12 years the computer programming industry presents the “JOLT Awards” in recognition of excellence.

JOLT was the first new age product to expand internationally…generating significant sales in Australia, Japan and Germany, etc.

JOLT was the first soft drink to successfully diversify into non-beverage items. Among them are Jolt Snowboards, Jolt Candies, Jolt Gum, Jolt Mints, etc.

However it took them until 2007 to release their first “Energy Drink” Jolt Energy. Even though Pepsi to counter Jolts Claim to fame of twice the caffein introduced Josta in 1995 and was officially the first energy drink on the US market.
(SOME FACTS)
By the year 2001, the US energy drink market had grown to nearly 8 million per year in retail sales.
Over the next 5 years, it grew an average of over 50% per year, totaling over $3 billion in 2005.
Diet energy drinks are growing at nearly twice that rate within the category, as are 16-ounce sized energy drinks. The energy drink market became a $5.4 billion dollar market in 2007, and both Goldman Sachs and Mintel predict that it will hit $10 billion by 2010.

So by 2001 energy drinks had retail sales of 8 million per year and Jolt where were you? Well you had become a novelty item because you were behind the times. In 2001 there were over 300 different varieties of energy drinks. Why would someone go buy a Jolt that only had twice the caffein.

Now back to 2007 and Jolt Energy hits the market and everyone agrees it is the best tasting energy drink out there with one exception…
THE DIET FLAVORS TASTE AWFUL!!!

Guys come on, if Red Bull figured out how to make a decent tasting (it tastes bad too but given a choice I’d choose diet Red Bull over diet Jolt anyday) diet energy drink why can’t you? Are we going to have to wait till 2012 for it?