As a retired U.S. Navy SEAL lieutenant commander Jocko Willink knows more than a thing or two about laying out a plan and executing it.
In the military he led troops into battle in Iraq and in business he’s built a lifestyle media brand around leadership and discipline, but now – as he looks to expand his beverage platform Jocko Fuel – can he conquer the field of DSD? And more importantly, can he build a brand that can thrive beyond its namesake founder?
Willink is best known as a podcaster, speaker and author, whose books include guides on leadership like Extreme Ownership and Discipline Equals Freedom, which apply lessons from his military experience to life and business. Since 2018, the Jocko name has also been put behind a growing CPG business, Jocko Fuel, which initially launched with a now-discontinued white tea product before pivoting to focus on the fast-growing better-for-you energy drink category in 2020 with the introduction of its supplement-enhanced Jocko Fuel GO.
Since then, Jocko Fuel has grown into a platform brand playing in multiple categories: besides GO, it also offers Mölk protein shakes – a natural alternative to brands like Muscle Milk – and next month it will roll out an RTD sports drink line called Hydrate, which it previewed at Natural Products Expo West in March and is scheduled to officially launch on June 4. That’s in addition to a supplements line and powdered hydration mixes which are sold online and in specialty stores like GNC and The Vitamin Shoppe.
With a nationwide presence in conventional and specialty grocery stores like H-E-B, Meijer and Wegmans, Jocko Fuel’s next step, the company says, is to grow its DSD network in order to fill in geographic gaps. Besides specialty and conventional, director of brand experience Phil Mero said the brand is now also targeting the convenience channel with Wawa on the East Coast, 7-Eleven stores in Texas and in Rocky Mountain and Idaho chain Stinker, and the company will be launching with a “major Southeast retailer” later this year.
“We’re looking to find our opportunities in basically all channels, because we were really bullish on our formulations, and on our brand as a whole,” Mero said. “In leveraging our DSD partners, the goal is to be ubiquitous and be everywhere.”
Although GO has faced some tough competition in the energy set, Mero called the Mölk line the brand’s ”trojan horse,” with its clean label protein position working to drive trial.
But in a marketplace filled with rising BFY performance energy drinks like Celsius, clean protein players like OWYN, and emerging hydration beverage competition from PRIME and Electrolit, the unproven factor is whether Jocko Fuel can establish itself outside of Willink’s existing audience.
The Meaning of Leadership
Speaking to BevNET last week, Willink said he believes it’s already doing just that, citing cleaned out palettes for GO and Mölk in H-E-B locations and strong pull-throughs in regions like the Midwest. One retailer, which he didn’t specify, reported that Mölk was driving around 65% incremental growth to the protein shake set in some stores, he claimed. But, although his podcast commands over 1.8 million subscribers just on YouTube, he admits he wasn’t at first if the brand would resonate with consumers outside of his dedicated followers.
“I have a relationship with people through my podcast and through my books. I know that people know who I am from those things, and I know that they trust what I say and they recognize me,’” he said. “But what is going to happen when people aren’t from the digital world? They’re in the real world, and do the people in the real world know who I am? I was definitely concerned about that.”
Brand marketing director Cameron Fischer said that how to go about expanding Jocko Fuel beyond Willink’s existing audience is a “question I try to figure out the answer to all day long.” Fischer joined the company last year, coming from TB12, the nutrition lifestyle brand created by retired NFL icon Tom Brady, and he said the goal for marketing is to thread the needle between the existing customer base – which includes many military personnel, frontline workers, and a number of higher income shoppers, he said – and a broader audience.
“We are in full brand awareness mode right now,” Fischer said. “The thing about Jocko, the beauty of him, is I’ve never seen a person cross the full spectrum of c-suite executives down to local farmer the way that he does, and that that certainly helps us. Now for us, it’s looking outside of that core consumer though and where do we go next? How do we expand the brand? How do we make it more approachable?”
One piece of that strategy is innovation, and the upcoming Hydrate launch is expected to play a big role in that strategy.
Jocko Hydrate comes in four flavors: Fruit Punch, Blue Raspberry, Island Orange and Lemon Lime, each made with a blend of magnesium, potassium, chloride and sodium and with no artificial flavors or sweeteners, dyes or sugar.
Another part of the strategy is partnerships, including a CrossFit Games deal naming Jocko Fuel GO and Mölk as the event’s official energy drink and official RTD protein shake.
There’s also a new piece in Jocko’s arsenal: celebrity investor and co-owner Chris Pratt. The Guardians of the Galaxy star came on board with Jocko Fuel in December and Fischer said the company is currently filming a series of digital video content featuring the actor, which will begin releasing more frequently over the next several months, according to Fischer. Pratt, he said, has been highly active in the business and the videos will also help introduce more consumers to Willink himself, which the company believes will help people to better understand the message of the brand.
A Clean Message
For Willink, the message he wants to communicate with Jocko Fuel is one of health and clean living.
“Right now, there’s a 17-year-old kid that’s about to go buy an energy drink that’s got 250 or 300 milligrams of caffeine in it. It’s filled with sugar. It’s absolutely terrible for him. He’s gonna buy one for his little sister and he’s gonna buy one for his mom and one for his dad. And that’s just terrible,” Willink said. “Our mission at Jocko Fuel is to give people around the country a healthier option, a clean option, give them clean fuel, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Besides Pratt, the brand has also been funded through private equity investment: In 2022, Jocko Fuel received $30 million in funding from firm Goode Partners, LLC.
In running the brand alongside hosting his podcast and running his consulting firm, Echelon Front, Willink said he owes the early growth of Jocko Fuel to hiring people with experience in CPG and beverage, citing COO Diane Preston – a former VP of supply chain at The Dannon Company – as a vital team member.
According to Mero, the CPG business has over 30 full time team members with about nine dedicated to sales and marketing.
Delegating to his team and listening to those on his team with expertise, Willink said, has been at the center of his personal strategy.
“The reason I was able to be successful in the military was having an open mind,” he said. “Having an open mind is absolutely critical, because when you go into combat, if you have a closed mind and the enemy does something you didn’t expect, you’re going to have real problems. If your own people do something you didn’t expect, you’re going to have real problems. If the weather does something you didn’t expect, you’re going to have real problems. So you have to have an open mind and be willing to look at the information that’s coming to you and make adjustments and adapt so that you can overcome.”