It's Monday, Get Stoked

Photo of Stok shots from the Cruftbox website



IT'S MONDAY MORNING , GET STOKED ....

Monday mornings, some days you could stick your head in the pencil sharpener and still not get the point. Even an emergency cup of liquid road tar (a.k.a. 7-11 coffee), is not enough to cut through the brain fog. Which is why Whitewave Foods has come up with Stok Black Coffee Shots, a new product they are distributing via convenience stores that sell hot brewed java.

Resembling coffee creamers in their little foil-capped cups, each one contains 40 milligrams of pure caffeine, the equivalent of one shot of espresso, and comes in two versions: regular and sweetened. Manufacturers say that adding it to your coffee won’t change its flavour, but it could stimulate your brain circuits in a faster and more noticeable way. Dangerous? Probably not. The label does come with a warning not to consume more than 2 per day, but that may be more promotional come-on than medical requirement. According to the people at Energy Fiend, it would take around 300 Stok coffee shots (or a gallon of Stok) to actually kill a 175 lb. person, or perhaps send him into orbit around Jupiter.

For people who could use the boost but don’t like coffee, and also don’t want the sugary content of a caffeine-rich alternative like Red Bull, this could become their drug of choice. Theoretically, the poppers could be added to any beverage, or if one is desperate enough, even gulped down as is.

Whitewave claims the product is aimed at “active boisterous consumers who live their lives on overdrive� and they have allocated a million dollars to market the product through “unconventional� media: event sponsorships, celebrity endorsements, street teams, in-store promotion and “consumer-generated content�, meaning blogs, one would presume.

Of course, the irony here is that by side-lining the "conventional" media they could be missing out on their most devoted customers. If we were the maker of Stok, we'd pour cartons of the stuff through the mail slot of every publication on press deadline and let the sleep-deprived staff go forth and spread the gospel. They think bloggers sitting around in their bathrobes, stroking their profound thoughts, are the ones who need this crutch? Ha!

The first drop of Stok Black Coffee shots has been distributed throughout the US with marketing campaigns set to commence on the Memorial Day weekend. The Canadian market is next. Initially product samples will be free, but one wonders if that will still be the case once the nation is addicted. We see Saturday Night Live potential material in this.

Filed in FOOD/new products.