After launching online late last year with a series of limited time drops for each flavor, web3-aligned sparkling water brand Rekt is entering the real world with the roll out of its Liquidated Lime flavor into three Southern California 7-Eleven locations this month.
The launch was accompanied by activation events this month where consumers could also receive free $REKT Coin cryptocurrency and “DRANK Points” with their purchase.
Rekt – the name being internet slang for “wrecked” – is the CPG offshoot of the popular Rektguy non-fungible token (NFT) collection and web3 brand platform, created by founder Ovie Faruq in 2022 amid a major boom for the NFT marketplace, propelled by the sudden success of Bored Ape Yacht Club and other web3 brands.
Now, Faruq is taking Rekt offline with a sparkling water business. In the company’s words, Rekt is aiming to blend “physical product with digital culture, meme-fueled aesthetics, and Web3-powered loyalty.”
“The main idea was to make something that’s universal, that’s cheap to produce, and that we can mass produce and get to as many places as possible – and the original Rektguy NFTs, in every single one they’re holding a drink,” Faruq said.
Rekt’s Liquidated Lime flavor is available at 7-Eleven in 12 oz. cans at an SRP of $2.80 and is lightly sweetened with organic agave nectar.
Since its launch online last year, Rekt has launched its flavors as “drops” similar to NFT collections and crypto releases, with the brand promoting each new flavor ahead of time. Sold out launches are left viewable on the webpage for posterity, with the question of whether or not it will come back in stock left unanswered.
To date, Rekt has released three flavors: Liquidated Lime, Abstract Apple and Ship Rekt (raspberry and grapefruit), each selling in 24-packs of 12 oz. cans for $69.69 each. Preorders for the next flavor, called Jupiter Drops, have also sold out.
According to Faruq, the brand’s first launch of 222,000 cans sold out in roughly 48 hours, with the subsequent launches selling out respectively in 17 minutes and 40 minutes, with a total of 700,000 cans sold to date direct-to-consumer.
“I think people have realized this is actually now interesting, ‘because these guys keep doing the same thing,’” he said. “And now the crypto landscape is changing. So the initial calls we made out to people, we’ve started getting calls back.”
The Memecoin Strategy
Faruq began his professional career in finance, spending nearly a decade with Barclays Investment Bank as a credit trader. During his time at the bank he became increasingly interested in the crypto sector and in 2022, working on nights and weekends, he created Rektguy, a collection of NFTs featuring variations on a drawing Faruq made of a cartoon skeleton drinking from a glass bottle.
Rektguy was caught in the 2022 NFT wave and quickly went viral, with celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Gary Vaynerchuck snagging tokens.
But the heightened NFT market of 2022 was not built to last and flash forward to today, in Faruq’s words, the crypto sphere – along with the broader global marketplace – “got rekt.”
“Lots of people seem to resonate or identify with the word ‘rekt’, and we built quite a strong following and community over that two year period,” he said.
There’s also a saturated marketplace for so-called “memecoins” that are in a sense nearly worthless from a traditional financial perspective but attract individual buyers from the larger crypto community willing to roll the dice on an untested coin with a tinge of humor to it.
REKT Coin, the currency attached to the beverage brand, Faruq said, is a memecoin.
“There’s no direct cash flows, there’s no intrinsic value, yet you have coins out there, like Dogecoin, which is a $20 billion market cap [that] go to very crazy high prices, because people just believe in this idea, or it’s a movement or a cult or whatever it is, and they just want to see the number go up that way,” he explained.
Faruq believes that the bullish attitude towards crypto coming from the U.S. government is helping to reopen doors for web3-based ventures, including integrated CPG plays that had been largely overlooked by mainstream retailers.
While some recent attempts at integrated CPG/web3 plays, such as Bored Breakfast Club, have floundered, Rekt is finding that the mainstream is becoming more receptive and willing to take a chance on the brand.
“Once upon a time, people would say ‘no, I don’t want this in my store. I don’t care.’ Whereas now, people are like ‘oh, I kind of have to be on board, because the President of the U.S. is on board,” he said.
The trend is also being embraced by established CPG brands which have taken a higher interest in crypto, like Mid-Day Squares purchasing ingredients from foreign suppliers in Bitcoin and Asian foods conglomerate DayDayCook creating a Bitcoin reserve.
Going IRL
Rekt has been able to establish a formal CPG business structure with the help of advisors from the food and beverage space, including Oli Clements, the co-founder of U.K. canned vodka seltzer brand DRTY Drinks, and sales and marketing executive Greg Guss.
The addition of seasoned beverage executives to the advisory team has helped Rekt to establish relationships within the industry, while the existing Rektguy NFT community has served as an initial, loyal consumer base.
Those connections also helped Rekt to make its brick-and-mortar launch into 7-Eleven
Perhaps most importantly, Faruq believes that Rekt has an appeal to people outside of the crypto realm. For the brand’s first launch online, he said sales were made 50/50 in cryptocurrency and government-backed currency, while the second drop was around 65/35 in favor of the latter.
“I think we do have a lot of people buying it for the drink, and people want to support this as a ‘let’s fight the big guys’ kind of brand,” he said.
While Rektguy already has a cult following, Faruq is looking to the strategies employed by brands like Ghost Lifestyle in developing loyal consumer communities through regular online engagement.
And true to its roots, Rekt Drinks is looking not just to become a lifestyle CPG brand, but also aims to lead consumers back to its web3 offerings, including a reward system called DRANK Points awarded for online purchases, and an opportunity to claim $REKT Coin, a tradable cryptocurrency, with the bigger hope being that non-crypto owners will be converted by the opportunity to claim a free coin.
“In addition to what I’m purchasing, I’m getting this coin, and there’s no real need for me to sell it, but I just want to see this brand do well and support it so it creates a strong holder base.”