After spending about two years creating a customer base in New York by handing out free samples at yoga studios and road races, Rampolla brought the product to the Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles markets within the past year. He says he plans to bring the same “guerilla marketing” campaign to Baltimore next year. ZICO’s sales are on pace to exceed $4 million this year versus $1 million last year, according to Rampolla. The product is manufactured in Brazil and available online through Amazon.com. It is carried by yoga studios and health food stores in the targeted cities. Rampolla has seven employees. “It really is the most cost-effective way to reach consumers,” he said. “Also, with a product like this, you need people to talk about it. You need evangelizers versus hearing it from someone in an ad — you need to hear it from someone you respect.”
Costa Rica RPCV Mark Rampolla banking on national buzz for new sports drink
Developer of new sports drink banking on national buzz
LIZ FARMER
Daily Record Business Writer
June 3, 2008 7:02 PM
In the sports drink world there are Gatorade and Powerade — and the rest. But Mark Rampolla, founder of a company that sells an all-natural drink made from coconut water, is out to create a national buzz about his product — without spending a dime on advertising.
“We do zero advertising; everything we do is face-to-face, direct-to-consumer,” said Rampolla, 38, founder of ZICO.
After spending about two years creating a customer base in New York by handing out free samples at yoga studios and road races, Rampolla brought the product to the Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Portland, Ore., and Los Angeles markets within the past year. He says he plans to bring the same “guerilla marketing” campaign to Baltimore next year.
ZICO’s sales are on pace to exceed $4 million this year versus $1 million last year, according to Rampolla. The product is manufactured in Brazil and available online through Amazon.com. It is carried by yoga studios and health food stores in the targeted cities. Rampolla has seven employees.
“It really is the most cost-effective way to reach consumers,” he said. “Also, with a product like this, you need people to talk about it. You need evangelizers versus hearing it from someone in an ad — you need to hear it from someone you respect.”
ZICO is pure coconut water, contains five electrolytes, has more potassium than a banana, is low in acidity and is fat free, according to the product information. Rampolla, a Pittsburgh native, said he first tried coconut water while a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica during the early 1990s.
“Since then I’ve probably spent more time in Latin America than in the United States, and I saw people drinking it everywhere,” he said. “It was at that time we really began to understand the health properties of coconut water.”
Some say coconut water hydrates better than other sports drinks and that its potassium levels — 14 percent of the recommended daily dose versus Gatorade and Powerade’s 1 percent— make it especially beneficial in fighting off post-workout muscle cramping.
At New York City’s Bikram Yoga Union Square, which sells about 24 cases of ZICO a week, instructor George Delancey-Ealy said the drink was ideal for intensive calorie-burning activities like Bikram Yoga or marathon running because of its natural rejuvenating capabilities. Bikram or “Hot” Yoga is a 90-minute workout while in a room heated to 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity.
Keith P. West, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Human Nutrition, said coconut water’s natural properties help rehydrate and refresh faster than regular water.
“It is inside that coconut for a reason — to nurture the coconut,” he said. “I’ve used it to rehydrate myself in Bangladesh and Nepal when I’m feeling really dehydrated under field conditions, and it works really well.”
ZICO also contains protein, calcium and about a third less calories per 11 ounces than Gatorade and Powerade. The company has signed with major distributors in some markets, including Big Geyser, Vitamin Water’s first distributor, in New York and Burke Distributing, Red Bull’s distributor, in Boston. And while Rampolla said he has begun buying ads for the distribution trucks, the bulk of the money he would have spent on advertising goes into his product and the street marketing team.
He added his marketing method was partially influenced by Kevin Plank, founder of Baltimore-based Under Armour Inc., who got his company started by spending a summer giving away boxes of his moisture-wicking athletic shirts to college football teams.
But some say grassroots marketing, while effective at creating interest, can’t be the last stop on the block for a company that wants to grow.
“You can’t just stick to product placement, especially if it’s something there’s a lot of,” said Bob Leffler, founder of Leffler Agency, a Baltimore-based sports marketing firm. “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to buy ads.”
He added that while no one else by 1995 had created something like Under Armour’s T-shirt, Rampolla’s product is in a market that had dozens of competitors. According to Lauren E. Torres, a beverage industry analyst with HSBC in New York, Gatorade and Powerade’s dominance — about 99 percent of market — make the sports drink category difficult to penetrate.
She also noted that while ZICO seemed to target different athletes than the classic Gatorade-drinking football player, the industry’s giants were continuously developing or acquiring products to suit different athletic styles.
“If this company and product carves out the niche it needs and aligns itself with marathons or yoga studio chains, there can be some longevity,” Torres said. “But to say it can shell out support dollars anywhere near the big guys [is asking too much]. So often, the end game is do you get bought by a bigger player or do you fade out and make room for another new product?”
Rampolla — for now — said he’s sticking to his game plan of building a fan base city by city.
“Unless you’re going to spend $100 million, [I think] you can’t possibly market effectively to the countywide outlets,” he said. “We want everyone we deal with to succeed with ZICO. …We want to make sure that if we are successful with them they can advocate for us.”
