Advocare International
August 23, 2006

Today, energy beverages represent a $3.5 million industry that is continuing to grow at a fervent pace (up 75 percent since 2005). With high revenues coming in, it would follow that marketers look to every channel of expansion. The development of enterprise marketing software has made it easier for companies to direct their targeted efforts more accurately.

But has the increase in marketing effectiveness paved the way for a decrease in corporate responsibility? Now regularly appearing in lunch boxes and littering middle school soccer fields, Red Bull's six-inch-tall blue cans have sparked a debate over this and other such energy drinks' adverse health and well-being effects. Health experts are reviewing the potential consequences of these products on adults, but marketers continue to target an increasingly younger demographic with the drinks. Most noticeably, AdvoCare, manufacturer of the energy drink SPARK, last fall rolled out KickStart SPARK, a spinoff of the adult version aimed at children four and over. It contains 60 mg of caffeine (about half a cup of coffee) as well as 200 mg of taurine and 100 mg of gamma-aminobutyric acid, both nonregulated supplements.

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