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Red Bull is one of the iconic challenger brands. A brand that's managed to maintain its street cred over time with smart communication and a finely focused understanding of what its brand stands for.

However, Red Bull has been a "one trick pony"- extracting more and more from a single SKU and resisting the temptation to line extend itself to death. Something that certainly would have happened if the company had been taken over by one of the soda giants.

Red Bull's latest move must have those same soda giants sweating because the new line extension, is a cola with a twist; a completely natural version.



This is a product formulation that's achieved some success in countries like Germany and even Pepsi has experimented with a new natural variant called RAW, but Red Bull could be onto a winner here.

The brand has significant awareness, a massive distribution system and the challenger credentials to help it take on the giants. On top of all this, the brand has the zeitgeist impact of the shift to all things natural and a backlash against un-natural sodas, in its favor.

Via Coolhunting

Posted by Ed Cotton At http://cola.trnd.com members of the word-of-mouth-network trnd (Munich) are re-developing Open Source Cola. It's a soda designed to work like Wikipedia.

Everybody can be part of the process just by adding ideas and comments. All participants take part in the final recipe, decide which ingredients will be used and how the new product will find its way to the consumer. They discuss the different ideas for the recipe as well as a strategy to launch and sale the Cola online.

Originally Open Cola was an experiment to explain the principle of Open-Source software. The Toronto-based Open Cola Company became better known for the drink, than the software it was supposed to promote. Up until 2004, it had sold about 150,000 cans of Open Cola. Since the company's demise, the Open Cola recipe is now under GNU General Public License, which means everyone can modify, produce and sell it.

The trnd company have turned Open Cola into an open source project, providing a wiki, a blog and the FAQ site. It started by analyzing the German Cola market, then moved on to setting up goals and a timing plan.

At the moment, visitors to http://cola.trnd.com prefer a Cola with organic ingredients and alternative sweetener (like honey or maple syrup). There are also a couple of other ideas around, including the suggestion that the Cola should be sold as a concentrate with a variety of flavors and a number of different suggestions for a brand name.

Written by Claudia Dolle, who's currently interning at Influx.