Up until the last 24 hours I had no idea what PRIME Hydration was, but apparently, I’ve been living under a rock.
Teens have their parents lining up in queues for hours. Some were even willing to pay up to R1000 per 500ml until Checkers became the knight in shining armour and sold them for only R40 per bottle.
What is so special about PRIME Hydration Drinks?
Firstly, let’s call a spade a spade. PRIME Hydration Drinks is a social media marketing campaign gone completely right. The product only hit the shelves 15 months ago and it’s already a hit in South Africa.
The product was founded and promoted by British YouTuber, KSI and American, Logan Paul.
Olajide Olayinka Williams “JJ” Olatunji or more commonly known as KSI is a British YouTuber, rapper, boxer and CEO of Misfits Boxing. He is the co-founder and member of a YouTube group called Sidemen, with more than 18 million subscribers on YouTube alone.
Paul is a professional wrestler, currently signed to WWE. He is also a podcaster, with over 4 million YouTube subscribers for his podcast and over 23 million YouTube subscribers on his personal channel. Forbes listed Paul as one of the highest-paid YouTube creators for 3 years.
Together the two of them amass a whopping 100 million social media followers.
@bare.ps_ I hope this is the way you run to read your Bible and go to Church 😌 #primejuice #primeinsouthafrica #primeinsouthafrica #KSI #loganpaul #southafrica #southafricatiktok
PRIME has been promoted through sports sponsorship deals with the UFC, the mixed martial arts organization, at the forefront of a multi-year global marketing partnership.
The PRIME pair were boxing rivals in 2018 when the match was declared a majority draw. In 2019, KSI won. In 2022, they went live on Instagram and viewers were expecting to see a fight. Instead, they announced their truce and announced that they were now business partners.
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Three months later, they had garnered more than $10 million worth of sales globally.
Is PRIME a healthy drink?
This was my first thought when I heard that teens were in demand of what I thought to be an energy drink.
According to The Guardian, PRIME Hydration Drink contains coconut water, vitamin B, sweeteners, and branched-chain amino acids, an additive that bodybuilders use to build muscle.
PRIME Energy, on the other hand, contains more than twice the amount of caffeine than the amount present in a can of Red Bull.
PRIME in South Africa
Parents and their kids were up at the crack of dawn on a public holiday to get their hands on a bottle of PRIME.
Checkers entered into a partnership with PRIME, which meant that the product became more accessible to consumers as they could sell it at a retail price that was more affordable.
Here’s what the launch of PRIME at Checkers looked like in South Africa:
#prime 7:40am this morning at Checkers for Prime! pic.twitter.com/pt7ObPW5W1
— Albe (@AlbeBack001) May 1, 2023
It’s interesting to see an American and British sportsmen team up and launch their own product. Clearly it was a recipe for success and we will most probably be seeing more of this type of collaboration in the future.
The success of PRIME also says a lot about the type of content that children are consuming online, and perhaps it is a cause of concern to see how many teens are familiar with boxing and wrestling stars like KSI and Logan Paul.
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Featured image: Getty
