5 Hour Energy Makes Uses Facebook to Make Possible PR Save
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 3:34PM 
My first brand marketing gig was with Red Bull back when nobody but college kids could have a Facebook account. That job taught me a sonic mega-load about influencer, experience & event marketing and 85% of it still holds up today. That's why I have a special place in my heart when it comes to guerrilla marketing teams for energy drinks & stories like this one. I also still have a lot of industry folks in my Facebook stream and I tend to get these things fresh off the press.
Some things are ageless when it comes to experiential marketing. One of them is perception. When you're representing the brand, you are percieved one in the same as the brand you are working for. There are two rules when you're out sampling energy drinks.
1. Don't Yawn
2. Don't sleep in the car
As you can tell by the picture above, these poor kids are proving exactly why rule #2 was put into place. It would suck for the brand to have anyone see you out on the streets sleeping in an energy drink van. It would really suck if someone got a picture of you sleeping and it began to build the energy needed to create a nice little interenet meme.
I commend 5 Hour Energy for making lemons into lemonade and reacting quickly and with a sense of humor on this one. As soon as this pic starting making rounds, they threw it up on their Facebook and with just a bit of egg in thier face, said "ok we've seen it and it's kind of funny, what isn't funny is the captions you guys have come up with so far."
They created it into their own caption contest and though it's not the most original, it is quick and does the job. It deflates it, and calls it as it is, 2 young workers that got caught doing something that doesn't match up with the brand much. Workers make mistakes, what are you gonna do? I'm sure they won't be doing it again :)
It's a small example, but shows that more & more brands are learning to not be afraid of Facebook & virality, but to accept it, harness it and use it right back.
Nice work 5 Hour Energy guy!
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