Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

When you walk into a grocery store, there are things that your eyes linger on. And there are those that you just don’t register. 

Take the cooler, for instance. Everytime I see one, I scan it for new Greek yoghurts and milkshakes. I’m not a huge fan of either. But for some inexplicable reason, I love looking at them. 

Then there are energy drinks. The colour of neither the liquid nor the packaging is subtle enough for you to miss them. Red, green, blue, black, orange… you get the drift. But I almost never pay attention to them. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had an energy drink in my life. 

I do know quite a few Red Bull fans, though. And yes, some of them are in their 30s and 40s, hard as it may be to believe. 

Red Bull is certainly not a cheap beverage. It costs Rs 125 (US$1.5) for a 250ml can. For context, a Pepsi can of the same size is priced at less than one-third of that. So Red Bull’s appeal has always been limited by its price. 

But energy drinks have lately broken out of the niche market they were happy with for so long. 

And PepsiC0’s Sting is a great example.

Sting and the massification of energy drinks

I took this picture at my local kirana (neighbourhood store) yesterday. 

Maybe this particular congregation doesn’t strike you as odd. But not too long ago, you probably wouldn’t have found them sharing the same cooler, let alone the same shelf. Energy drinks were priced like beverage royalty, and they were treated like it—you can still find Red Bull’s exclusive coolers in swankier retail establishments. 

Sting changed things. 

When PepsiCo launched the drink in India in 2017, it was a seemingly inopportune time. This is from an article in the financial daily Mint: