How the Boys from Amsterdam Made the‘ C’ Word Cool by Richard Cashdan
When several famous and not-famous people who you’ ve never met, including random law-enforcement officials and comedians don’ t just use your product, but proudly promote it in pictures, videos and social media feeds, nobody needs to tell you that you are cool. You ARE officially cool!
“ Cannabis Energy Drink is truly the new breed,” explains Rob Snel, Cannabis Energy Drink’ s co-founder and CCO, and currently one of the coolest dudes around.“ Whenever you have a Cannabis Energy Drink in your hand, it just makes you look cool.”
Like, the Cannabis Energy Drink that he founded( website: www. cannabisenergydrink. com), Rob is direct, engaging and quite crazy. He says what he thinks and that has made him into a very controversial, creative and successful figure. Rob works and lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands, home of the world famous Red Light District and a tolerant government that is notorious for not enforcing laws that relate to possessing small amounts of marijuana.
He is also incredibly blunt and honest about the reason behind the Cannabis Energy Drink’ s astounding growth,“ Cannabis is a very controversial word and leaf in the U. S. and that controversy surrounding“ Cannabis” has help make our company successful. We are proud to stand behind the leaf and what it represents and to make a delicious drink that expresses the freedom and excitement of Cannabis.”
Ironically, the meteoric rise of the Cannabis Energy Drink is perhaps as interesting as the drink itself:
“ We originally started it as a joke,” Rob confessed.“ Once my partner and I said the name out loud, we both howled with laughter! We truly thought that an energy drink with cannabis in the name was such a ridiculous idea. However, the more we kept thinking about it, the more excited we got about it. Finally, I woke up one morning and realized that this is it! I believe that when you get a strong feeling in your gut about something, you have to follow it to the end and see where it takes you.”
52 April / May
Soon Rob and his partner had registered the name and made their first ever marketing effort for the Cannabis Energy Drink, which started with a bicycle.
“ Once we created the product we put the first batch into a big bicycle and started taking it around to local coffeeshops, souvenir shops, bars and clubs in Holland. They agreed that the can looked very cool and they enjoyed the drink, so they started offering it to their customers,” Recalled Rob.
Soon, Cannabis Energy Drink was flying off the shelves and the shops and bars enthusiastically ordered more.
Encouraged by this response, Rob and his partner began to make posters and other marketing materials in-house, without any assistance from an ad agency. The key to the Cannabis Energy Drink’ s popularity explosion, however, can be traced to their innovative facebook campaign.
“ When I started the campaign on facebook, I had no clue what I was doing, but I was committed to working hard and getting the word out about Cannabis Energy Drink. I began getting more“ likes” organically,” said Rob.“ It took 12 months to get to 50K likes. And once we hit that milestone, we knew nothing could stop us.”
Using funky, cool images that convey a state of awesomeness, the off-the-wall images on the Cannabis Energy Drink’ s page began to spread organically via word of mouth. Soon, the Cannabis Energy Drink’ s facebook page had generated more than 50K likes and inspired an unprecedented response of unsolicited enthusiasm. You can take a look at it here: www. facebook. com / cedinternational.
But you don’ t have to take our word for it. Go to YouTube, look up“ Cannabis Energy Drink,” and see what responses are generated.
“ The most amazing thing about our development is that we have not had to hire or to sponsor anyone. Why should we? People love the drink. It’ s a good product that has an excellent taste. All we have to do to market it is to send out trays of it and let our ambassadors do the work,“ Rob said of his marketing philosophy.“ We got lucky with Facebook. I work with great graphic designers in Vegas and L. A who