Review: Citrus Mango

The premise behind RIZE Energy Drink is the use of trehalose, a naturally occurring sugar that the marketer claims provides twice the energy of glucose. From a flavor perspective, it’s perfectly pleasant, with a clean sugar sweetened body that features an enjoyable, albeit familiar, citrus and mango flavor. On the spectrum of energy drinks, which range from medicinal to tasting like candy, this product fits nicely in the middle. We’d say the same for their other flavor, so we’re just going to focus on this product for now. Functionally, the product has more than just trehalose, including more traditional energy drink ingredients including creatine, amino acids, B vitamins, caffeine, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, and rhodiola rosea (there are others as well). In our sampling, we felt as though this product was on par with other similar energy drinks. Ultimately, we think that uniqueness of formulation is a plus, but it’s a hard thing to communicate the the consumer (the can suggests trying it for a while to see the benefits -- but how many consumers will do that?). The story on the can about the creator of the drink is definitely helpful, it doesn’t fully connect the dots for the consumer in terms of what’s in the drink. Visually, we think they could do a lot more with this brand. The Rize logo (which looks almost like a disco ball) is washed out relative to the rest of the drink, which makes the eye go to what seem to be the wrong places. Cleaning up the front panel and removing some of the extraneous items that it contains would definitely be a good place to start. Beyond that we question whether this drink, which touts a superior functional formula, should have a more technical look to it. As it stands right now, we look at the brand and we’re just not sure what type of consumer it will appeal to. Overall, Rize is enjoyable to drink and has something unique to its formulation, but more communication and a more appealing design are going to be needed.

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