• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, October 8, 2007

Once again, out of the far Northwest comes a beverage that is not your father's Diet Coke. Or, in this case, your own Sunny D.

After 17 rounds of market research, Crayons All Natural Fruit Juice Drinks were launched this year as the antidote to fruit juice filled with high-fructose corn syrup. But that isn't what's making them fly off the shelves: It's the emotional connection consumers make with the package, which looks remarkably like a Crayola crayon.

Then there are the colors and flavors--Redder than Ever Fruit Punch, Kiwi Strawberry, Outrageous Orange Mango, Tickled Pink Lemonade and Wild Watermelon & Berries.

The trademark for the use of the name in food and beverages was purchased by co-founder Duncan Seay in 2003.

"[Crayon] is one of the most recognized and trusted brand names in world," says Crayons Inc. President/CEO Ron Lloyd. "Everybody knows crayons. They are massive door-openers, and they generate incredibly powerful emotional responses.

"When someone sees a new product, it's a stopper."

Enough consumers have stopped, apparently, that Crayons Fruit Juice Drinks are now in more than 2,000 stores across the country. "We are in every state except North Dakota," Lloyd tells Marketing Daily, adding rhetorically: "Can you get North Dakota for us?"

The Bellevue, Wash.-based firm, which currently employs just four full-time people and 100 contractors in marketing, advertising, graphics, market research and sales, expects to double within six months.

The marketing plan is heavy on distributing the product to the "opinion-leading natural and gourmet and specialty retailers across the country," says Lloyd, and on getting the drinks into the "hands and mouths of our consumers while telling them about the uniqueness of the product."

It is there, at traditional grassroots and wet sampling events, that Crayons tells potential buyers about its proprietary ingredient: SugarGuard, a blend of all-natural ingredients that slows down the rate at which sugar is absorbed by the body. In the midst of an international debate on the link between sugar and obesity, one might think this ingredient would be of interest.

"We have received calls from every large food and beverage company in world," says Lloyd, "but we want to keep it proprietary to us. We have purposely tried to stay under the radar as long as possible because of SugarGuard."

Lloyd says the company expects to deliver three and a half times the volume that it had agreed to do this year because the product's reception "has far exceeded our wildest expectations."

Crayons is one of many companies trying to ignite the healthy kids drink segment, says Gerry Khermouch, executive editor of Beverage Marketer's Insights, and there could be a huge reward for the one that does.

"The brand has been well formulated and seems to be getting extensive retail display in markets such as the Bay Area, but it's a somewhat complicated message to convey to consumers," he says. "I worry that the novelty-sounding name, Crayons, somewhat undermines the good-for-you message." Still, he says, it bears watching.

Other players taking various approaches in the segment range from the likes of Hint (unsweetened essence water) and Switch (carbonated 100% juice) to Wild Waters and Wadda Juice.