Only eight months after launching the product, Pure Growth Partners has quietly rebranded its Street King energy shot as SK Energy. While the brand’s website has yet to reflect the name change, the product has been advertised as SK Energy on its social media pages since the beginning of the month. The rebrand is also featured in a new TV commercial with founder Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Joan Rivers. In addition to the name change, the product sports a new silver wrap label and a tagline of “Powerful Pure Energy” on the cap.
Though company executives could not be reached in time for this story, the move apparently signals a repositioning of the brand and an attempt to reach a wider demographic by dropping the word “street” from its name.
Manufactured by Texas-based Big Red, which also has a sales and distribution role and minority stake in the brand, SK Energy debuted in September 2011 with a marketing and social mission to “feed a hungry child” by donating the cost of one meal to the United Nations World Food Program with the sale of every shot. The brand gained a key partner in January with The Honickman Group, an independent Pepsi distributor known for its deep and wide reach in the New York and Mid-Atlantic regions. By the beginning of the year, the product was distributed in 40,000 retail locations and gained authorizations at a number of chains including GNC, Rite Aid, Duane Reade, RaceTrac. Pure Growth co-founder Chris Clarke stated that he hopes to double distribution of SK Energy by the end of the year.
Interestingly – and certainly unintentionally – the product now shares a critical brand point with South Korean’s largest oil refiner which is named – you guessed it – SK Energy.