Bawls

Bawls (marketed as BAWLS Guarana)<ref name="2003-01-07 Baltimore Sun" /> is a non-alcoholic, highly-caffeinated soft drink.

Created in 1996, the citrus-and-cream soda-flavored beverage leans heavily on the caffeine and natural flavor of the Amazonian guarana berry. Packaged in unique cobalt-blue bottles and cans, the drink was well received by gamers, to whom the company quickly began extensively marketing (through both sponsorships and video games themselves). The soda's name has an unclear provenance, and Template:As of is still sold alongside six other flavors.

History

In 1994, Hobart C. Buppert III (born Template:Birth based on age as of date) was a student at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. While traveling through Vienna, he found club dancers were paying Template:US$ for cans of non-alcoholic, highly-caffeinated, "sludgy brew" derived from guarana beans.<ref name="1998-03-02 Bloomberg" /> Himself unable to tolerate coffee, Buppert saw potential in refining the drink he saw in Europe and received permission from Cornell to develop a business plan as an independent study.<ref name="2004-02-03 Cornell Daily Sun" />

Buppert graduated from Cornell in 1995 with a degree in finance.<ref name="2004-02-03 Cornell Daily Sun" /> In 1996, he took out a loan for Template:US$ to launch Hobarama in Miami Beach, Florida. That November in South Beach,<ref name="2002-08-11 Mercury News" /> he launched his first product: Bawls Guarana, a soft drink with three times the caffeine of Coca-Cola Classic. Bawls capitalized upon trends of the mid-1990s by being highly caffeinated, derived from natural ingredients, and having a gimmicky premise. By 1998, Bawls was not only popular in the nightclubs of New York City, South Florida, and Southern California, but was spreading to grocery stores in the US and Europe.<ref name="1998-03-02 Bloomberg" /> In its first year, Bawls brought in revenue of Template:US$.<ref name="1998-07-17 CNN" /> By 2000, Bawls was distributed by Arizona Distribution,<ref name="2000-03 Entrepreneur" /> and two years later, Hobarama moved into new Miami Beach offices at 311 Lincoln Road.<ref name="2014-11-01 Winsight Grocery Business" />

By November 2009, Hobarama was struggling, and creditors like Fifth Third Bank forced out chief executive officer (CEO) and founder, Buppert. A restructuring plan was put into place, and the company was entertaining any buyout offers.<ref name="2010-01-12 BevNET" /> On stable footing by 2012, the company bought out competitors Crunk Energy Drink and Strut & Rut.<ref name="2012-04-05 BevNET" /> Jon Gunnerson was the company's CEO in 2014, which had since moved its offices to Twinsburg, Ohio.<ref name="2014-11-01 Winsight Grocery Business" />

The marketing and higher caffeine content of Monster Energy delivered the first damage to Bawls' market share in 2002 by being more-widely appealing. The company later lost even its gamer niche to brands including Mtn Dew Game Fuel, Rockstar, and G Fuel—a brand with over 111 times more social-media followers. In 2022, the drink was being produced by Solvi Acquisition, and Bon Appétit reported on both Buppert's prediction that Bawls was in its twilight, and that the drink was "nearly impossible to find in stores".<ref name="2022-04-20 Bon Appétit" />

Production

Composition

The Baltimore Sun described Bawls' taste as citrus-flavored cream soda, and the soft drink gets its caffeine from the Amazonian guarana berry.<ref name="2003-01-07 Baltimore Sun" />

In 2002, a Template:Convert bottle had Template:Convert of caffeine, and cost about Template:US$.<ref name="2002-08-11 Mercury News" /> In 2004, a Template:Convert bottle had as much caffeine as 1.5 cups of coffee, and cost between Template:US$ (equivalent to $Template:Inflation–Template:Inflation in Template:Inflation/year).<ref name="2004-02-03 Cornell Daily Sun" />

In 2015, the Template:Convert can of original Bawls had Template:Convert, and both the composition and guarana suppliers were yet unchanged from 1996.<ref name="2014-11-01 Winsight Grocery Business" />

Packaging

Template:Multiple image In 2003, Bawls sourced its cobalt-blue bottles from Germany, and the bottle caps from Ecuador. They came together in Hillside, New Jersey where Bawls was bottled with guarana from Brazil.<ref name="2003-12-25 CNN" /> Circa 2005, Buppert described the drink's brand identity as based on the unique bottles, where the raised bumps "convey the idea of 'bouncing balls inside the bottle punching their way out.Template:'"<ref name="2015-03-11 Packaging Digest" />

In 2006,<ref name="2006-11-01 Beverage Industry" /> Hobarama developed a canned variant of Bawls both for shipping to overseas fans serving with the United States Armed Forces,<ref name="2006-02-19 Denver Post" /> and distribution at events prohibiting glass containers (e.g. paintball tournaments). The company partnered with Crown Beverage Packaging to develop a can that would evoke the uniqueness of the textured bottles: the Template:Convert aluminum cans are the first to feature foaming ink, a new and then-unused technology that applies a low-gloss print that swells when heated, giving the cans a surface akin to the bottles. In Montreal, Crown's manufacturing of these new cans took 18.6–30 percent longer than traditional can-printing processes.<ref name="2015-03-11 Packaging Digest" /> The can was one of Brand PackagingTemplate:'s selections for "best new consumer package goods packages of 2006."<ref name="2006-11-01 Beverage Industry" />

Marketing

By 2002, Bawls was focusing its marketing on gamers, who amounted to 50 percent of the drink's consumers, and were "typically males between 18 and 34." Eschewing the health-benefits claims of other energy drinks of the time, Bawls instead focused on just being a soft drink with lots of caffeine, earning "an almost cult-like following among computer addicts looking for a source of energy to keep them awake for gaming binges lasting 15 to 24 hours straight." That year, the company sponsored 2500 LAN parties.<ref name="2002-08-11 Mercury News" />

To capitalize on the connection, the national chain CompUSA began selling the soda in its stores<ref name="2003-01-07 Baltimore Sun" /> "to court the hard-core gamer market" (those who played PC games for more than 40 hours per week).<ref name="2002-09-24 WAPO" /> From 2004 through at least 2008, Bawls was featured at the Penny Arcade Expo, which brought the drink "a huge amount of attention". Bawls partnered with GameFly in 2008 to cross-promote each other through mutual discounts.<ref name="2008-07-08 Ars" /> In 2014, the Bawls was still marketed to gamers, including sponsoring QuakeCon 2014 where Template:Convert were drunk.<ref name="2014-11-01 Winsight Grocery Business" />

Name

In a 1998 interview with CNNfn, Buppert said of the name, "[it] represents a state of mind. Bawls is a very common slang term—to be bold and daring—and that's how we see the product. [...] I think it's very difficult for a consumer to forget a product called Bawls Guarana."<ref name="1998-07-17 CNN" /> In 2002, The Mercury News reported that BAWLS was an abbreviation for Brazilian American Wildlife Society, "intended to promote sustainable uses for the rain forest";<ref name="2002-08-11 Mercury News" /> Buppert repeated that story to CNN in 2003.<ref name="2003-12-25 CNN" /> A 2004 article by The Cornell Daily Sun said Buppert was brainstorming to emulate the strong names of existing brands (Flying Tiger, Red Bull), when "Bawls" instead came from a friend's joke of "Why don’t you just call it Balls?"<ref name="2004-02-03 Cornell Daily Sun" /> When Gunnerson was asked about the name in 2015, he said, "Bounce like a ball. It gives you enough energy and fuel. That was really the inspiration of it from my understanding. […] Bounce with BAWLS was really our one key tagline for quite some time."<ref name="2015-04 Specialty Sodas" />

Product placement

Hobarama and Vivendi Universal Games made a deal in 2002 for cross-promotion.<ref name="2002-09-17 NYT" /> Bawls received product placement as a game mechanic in the 2002 video game, Run Like Hell: protagonist Nick Conner drinks Bawls from vending machines to boost his health.<ref name="2003-04-29 Village Voice" /> In exchange, cases of Bawls bore advertisements for the game.<ref name="2002-09-17 NYT" />

In the 2004 video game, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, a shakeup in the management of Interplay Entertainment led to the replacement of the Fallout franchise's iconic Nuka-Cola with the real-world Bawls for the franchise's first outing on consoles. The swap was not well-received by fans.<ref name="2018-11-11 Eurogamer" />

Bawls has also been featured in TV shows and films, including The Big Bang Theory, The Hangover, and Silicon Valley.<ref name="2015-04 Specialty Sodas" />

Sponsorships

In 2002, the soda was the official soft drink of the Cyberathlete Professional League.<ref name="2002-08-16 CNET" /> Bawls has also been the official energy drink for the National Professional Paintball League (in 2004 & 2006),<ref name="2006-07 Beverage Spectrum" /> Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week (2008),<ref name="2008-09-16 Convenience Store News" /> and Olympus Fashion Week.<ref name="2006-11-01 Beverage Industry" />

Reception

In 1998, after Bawls was positively reviewed by Stephen Heaslip of Blue's News, the company's own site traffic increased by 2700–11320 percent.<ref name="2002-09-24 WAPO" /> In 2003, The Baltimore Sun called the drink "a smooth and tasty sip."<ref name="2003-01-07 Baltimore Sun" /> In 2005, Hobarama shipped 20 million bottles of Bawls.<ref name="2006-02-19 Denver Post" /> Ars Technica wrote of Bawls in 2008, "the huge amounts of caffeine within each bottle—along with the fact that it tastes far better than Red Bull—have made it a favorite beverage at many a LAN party and game tournament since [2004]."<ref name="2008-07-08 Ars" />

Variants

The sugar-free Bawls Guaranexx was the first variant of Bawls, released in 2003.<ref name="2006-11-01 Beverage Industry" /> In 2006, Hobarama partnered with 7-Eleven to produce a Bawls-based Slurpee (Sno Bawls) in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.<ref name="2006-02-19 Denver Post" /> By 2008, additional Bawls variants were available, including Bawls Cherry and Bawls Exxtra.<ref name="2008-09-16 Convenience Store News" /> Bawls' root beer variant—G33k Beer—premiered at a 2008 Halo tournament in South Miami, Florida;<ref name="2008-05-22 Miami New Times" /> that year it was named BevNET's Energy Drink of the Year.<ref name="2009-06-08 Ad Age" />

Template:As of, there were eleven combinations of Bawls flavors and packaging listed on the official website. In Template:Convert bottles were Original Soda, Zero, Orange, Ginger, Cherry Cola, Cherry, and Root Beer. The Template:Convert cans were sold with Original, Zero, Cherry, and Root Beer.<ref name="Bawls flavors" />

External links

• Template:Official website
• Template:Commons category-inline