Review: Ginger Berry

Buck O’Hairen’s Legendary Sunshine is a lightweight energy drink that features a retro style to its design and messaging. The design is definitely eye-catching and unique in terms of its illustrated approach. However, when you actually examine the packaging, it’s pretty hard to figure out what exactly the product is -- or even what it’s called. That being said, it feels as though design impedes this product’s ability to have a strong shelf presence. And even when you pick it up, we find it rather challenging to read, right down to the font they’ve chosen for the nutrition facts panel. For example, the calorie count looks like “80” instead of “60,” which is certainly something that might scare consumers away. Inside the can, the “ginger berry” flavor is sweet and pleasant, with a slight bite from the functional ingredients and the added stevia (it uses a sugar and stevia combination). In terms of functionality, the product has B vitamins and electrolytes, but neither are at levels where they’d beat out other products offering the same benefits. That really brings it back to caffeine, which, at 50mg, puts it slightly higher than a soda and less than an energy drink. For this drink’s value proposition (or at least what we think it will be when it’s in the marketplace), that seems like an okay place to be if they can figure out how to communicate it well. But right now, we think that their most pressing challenge is figuring out how to maintain the design while making the product a bit more user-friendly.