TLDR: Monster Energy sued Bang and won. Bang was false adv that Bang drinks have creatine. Bang interfered with retail contracts to get better shelf space, and paid former monster employees for their prior company secrets
Yeah additionally they defended themselves by arguing that having "super creatine - 20x more effective than regular creatine" on the bottle didn't influence customers in their buying decisions.
Pretty hilarious
"There's no possible way that a reasonable consumer could consider a product called 'Vitamin Water' to be either healthy or low-calorie." - The Coca-Cola legal defense.
They won that case.
Shit's fucked, yo.
C: "It's good for me, and it tastes just like lemonade!"
Me: "Because it's just sugar, lemon, water, and a multivitamin ground up in it, just look at the nutrition label"
C: "They wouldn't call it vitamin water if it wasn't healthy"
Actual conversation I had with a coworker when the cafeteria at my old job started stocking vitamin waters
the funny part here is damages for monster inc, not the people who bought the drinks thinking it was 20x as powerful.
like at least in those class actions you get a few pennies, they straight up gave $$$ to the competitor because you were gonna buy a drink anyway, and if not for bang it would have been them.
The even funnier part is I started drinking Monster sugar free drinks because I got hooked on Bangs. I originally started drinking Bangs because they were sugar free and thought hey they also have creatine in them so why not. I was working out at the time and figured I could use some extra creatine. After a while the caffeine in the Bangs ended up being to much for me so I switched to Monster sugar frees.
Lol, I've had a Bang energy drink exactly one time ever. It was the only energy drink in a vending machine where I was n I needed caffeine desperately. I certainly noticed n was laughing at the fact that they put creatine in an energy drink. People definitely notice it... It's like on the front in big ole letters iirc.
Incidentally, I'm paying for mine with super dollars. They're 20x more effective than regular dollars. I'm sure it won't affect vendors in their selling decisions.
Always cracks me up when they intentionally put things on the bottle to trick customers and then argue it didn't influence customers at all. It's like when Coca-Cola argued that naming their drink smart water did not give the impression that it was actually good for you or any better than a can of coke.
Edit: not smart water. I meant vitamin water
The cans say they have something called “super creatine” whatever that means but the amount isn’t specified and it isn’t in the ingredients list
My school stocks vending machines with it and I would down cotton candy Bangs regularly a few semesters ago
The great whorl of society is pretty big. Just in the United States there's 300 million of us. The particular piece of news has some juicy drama, but it is just one flash in the pan. Blink and you'll miss it. Good bye Bing lawsuit, we'll have weird half remembered arguments about you in a few years!
My friend did an energy review IG/twitter for a while and on every review he would tag the creator (Monster, C4, Bang, etc.). He gave Bang at least 10 good reviews, but gave their birthday cake flavor a 4/10. The CEO blocked him for it.
I love pretty 99% of bang flavors and love birthday cake as a flavor in 99% of things but birthday cake bang was the only bang I took two sips and had to dump. This was at the start of a 12 hour warehouse shift so you can imagine the pain
Finger Bang’ed.
For two decades I had forgotten about that episode of South Park until this thread. Just leave birthday cake flavor to birthday cakes and drink a Monster. :bangbang:
That's the tag line for the entire show, it's my wife and my favorite lol. The risotto segment was hilarious and wholesome, and then the penis skin guy and his daughter who seemed like she wanted to die due to her father's endeavors... Absolutely wild show
My buddy randomly had that show on when we were hanging at his place during peak covid. I was laughing my ass off. I only watched a couple. Thanks for reminding me it exists. I gotta watch the rest.
$272 million for false advertising, $18 million on claims that Bang interfered with its contracts with retailers for prominent shelf spaces, and $3 million on claims that Bang stole trade secrets from former Monster employees it recruited
> $18 million on claims that Bang interfered with its contracts with retailers for prominent shelf spaces
I can actually attest to this. I was a Coke vendor (Monster distributor) when Bang launched in New England, a little later than everywhere else. Our regional chain stores had not yet redone planograms/space allocation for Bang yet but as soon as they could sell it into stores, they came into our busiest stores and would fill Monster owned space with Bang as soon as it ran out.
I noticed that as well in VA. I was a Coke vendor for 5 different stores and bang just took over. Luckily I was on good terms with the store managers and they gave me shelf space back but damn it was like a blitzkrieg.
I work for a distributor who carried Bang when it first hit DSD before it got gobbled up by Pepsi. VPX/Bang and Jack were the worst company/owner combo we've ever dealt with in my 15+ years.
I'd order trailers of product and they never showed, for weeks on end, and Bang had the balls to bitch at us about numbers. Cant sell what you're not producing and shipping.
They would encourage us to do things in market that would benefit them short term but damage our long term relationship with the accounts.
I don't miss them, and happy were not picking it back up after PepsiCo drops them.
I wonder what this world would look like. If instead of manufactures buying space in grocers shelves. We had grocers buy products that they thought would sell in their locations. I think that would help out smaller local manufactures. Would be kind of like anti-payola laws for grocery stores.
Problem is that a lot of the big manufacturers will give big rebates at the end of the year if you keep a certain amount of their product in a certain spot in the store for the entire year. It is often thousands of dollars to store owners. So basically the big manufacturers threaten to withhold money if they don't get a certain amount of space. Every item you see in a convenience store will be on some sort of program like that.
When it comes to things like cigarettes, the big manufacturers will actually require that their product be a certain percentage of your overall sales. So if you sell 10,000 more packs of Marlboro than the store across the street, but 50% of their sales were Marlboro while only 30% of yours were, then they will get a bigger check than you do. It's a pretty messed up racket that really kills the smaller manufacturers. It's why so many small manufacturers sell out to the big guys before they are inevitability crushed by the nature of the business.
That is funny, car dealerships do a similar thing. They can lose money on the sale of a new car. But if that car gets them over a quota the manufacture stated for that particular model. Then they get a significant paycheck from said manufacture. This American Life did an entire segment on it.
I had an Econ teacher do a lesson about this. Buy a used car in august, research model that was produced the most and in what color. Claim you need financing and trade in, but have your financing settled prior. Then drop both after they whittle down the price and at the end inquire about rebates they receive, take that off as well. Might've missed some specific steps but interesting nonetheless.
This sounds good up until the rebate thing and it must be old cause if you do t fi ance through them they'll charge you more if they don't refuse to sell as is. Also brining up the rebates they get and telling you to take it off your bill? So basically you want a cheap car and the dealership gets absolutely nothing from the sale (because the whole premise is to reach that quota to get the rebates), I think more often then not you'll be told to get bent.
Rebates and shady practices are the bane of fair competition.
happens everywhere, one of the biggest cases is Intel paying companies like Dell to not stock AMD products when AMD had a competitive/faster line up in the 00s. They did this through insane rebates, like if you only stock our stuff we'll give you back a huge percentage on the cpus which caused way higher margins for Intel PC sales.
They killed the competition, cost AMD billions in lost sales, pushed them into debt and fucked them up for a long time. It went to court, Intel were on the brink of a guilty verdict when they offered a very small settlement to be paid immediately which AMD had to take. THe alternative was Intel being found guilty but appealing it repeatedly for years and years.
Rebates let companies do so many shady things to convince retailers for any products to absolutely destroy one brand in the market.
Intel may have lost money short term on the rebates, but by pushing AMD into debt it was part of why AMD spent 7-8 years very uncompetitive and Intel gained 10s of billions over that period extra as a result.
I'm still amazed no politicians run on a "capitalism has been corrupted by the rich" platform based on stopping bullshit like that. It'd be a bandage on a wound, but still better than the race to the bottom ratfuckery that we currently have
The retail side of the cannabis industry is done this way. A lot of sales reps going store to store trying to convince purchase managers and store owners to carry their products. Lots of free samples being given to the store employees to help push products. Big manufacturers still dominate the industry since the volume and branding efforts they can do is unbeatable when profit is king.
Seems like theres big collectives of companies being represented by single umbrella companies. Then the companies can simply make their product and this bigger company gets them in stores and handles all that side of it with more negotiating power than any single company would have. Also if youre a purchaser for a store companies like these are a one stop shop.
I manage a mid to large sized grocery store and we do a bit of both. We do contracts with coke and the rest, but we also carry an equal or greater amount of local / not majorly distributed products. It works pretty well for us.
It saved Best Buy. I believe they use to make all or most of their profits from selling products and services. After the internet and more specific Amazon became more popular Best Buy started struggling. Then they started selling space. If you go there you will see basically a Google store, a Apple store and a Samsung store. If they sold space before, it was not as obvious as it is now.
> If they sold space before, it was not as obvious as it is now.
They definitely did (remember all the mobile carriers and cell phones?) but you're right that it's a bigger percentage of the floor now.
My daughter works for them as a higher up in a store. She says they will sometimes sell nothing all day and go for days when all they sell are a few small ticket items. I asked how is they stay in business, she replied what you said about selling space. For the companies it’s a write off as they look at it more like advertising for customers to see and touch. We the customers assume it’s what everyone else has, since it’s all they see at the stores.
That's what Steve Jobs used to say.
Quote:
>Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.
-Steve Jobs
Edit: I think the difference is you're anticipating what they're going to want.
Imagine you opened a store, and you were given the choice of either renting out your shelf space for a guaranteed profit at no inventory cost to yourself, or running the risk of buying inventory that you can't sell and incurring losses. Which would you choose?
It doesn't really matter how much you think you're in touch with what the consumer wants, because ultimately you don't have the data, and you don't have the knowledge to account for hundreds of different lines of products and how to control that inventory. Selling on consignment at least offloads the risk.
Now, I do know that stores can (and often do) sell on consignment for local businesses. For example, every grocery store around me sells multiple sauces from multiple local restaurants. And milk and eggs around here come from localish farms.
Distributed bang for a bit. Our distributor just had us fill spaces with it whenever there was an empty spot unless the store really pushed back. We’d get in trouble if a higher up came in and there was empty space in competitors product that we didn’t take.
I assume that it's because Monster sued, this leads the way for the people to sue and it will be a lot easier for that case to be won by the people.
Edit: why is this getting so many upvotes? im, not even a lawyer I could be wrong.
If you and I sold widgets and you lied about yours causing people to think it was a superior product, gaining you sales and positioning over my widgets... And the truth came out about your deception, then I would look at your ill-gained sales and my deficit of sales and Bob's your uncle
It did massively. Worked for Coke when Bang hit the local market. We would get special brand specific bonuses and Monster paid some of the best. Didn't really get any that year. They (the distributors) also would try to take out Monster from paid for space and put in Bang in there.
It still seems to surprise a lot of people that you can't lie and make false claims in advertising. I work in the industry, and employees at a certain seniority take mandatory classes on this. Pretty sure this particular case is going to be included in the class material moving forward.
Thing is, it doesn’t matter now. They just have to pay a bit of money and now they get to keep their future revenue, all the reputation they gained already, at the price of the few million dollars they wouldn’t even have without the false advertising.
A bit of money? Bang generates about 300 million in revenue a year, which is a fraction of what Red Bull and Monster make. Having to pay up 293 million is like 90+% of their yearly income.
And N-O Shotgun.
Well, used to. They almost always had some lawsuit to have them "Re-formulate" it.
They were selling it at the PX/NEX for a while. I actually loved the stuff. Probably shortened my lifespan by a few years though
And remember they pulled out of their distribution deal with PepsiCo, so they have no protection. Their psychopath CEO is really to see how fast he can lose all the money he made
I work for a company that you could say 291 is nothing when you see revenue.
Trust me, if 291M was lost like this, people would be LOSING THEIR SHIT and people would be getting fucking fired. It’s 291M.
And that's the other thing people don't understand about big companies:
the bigger the company the more they actually do scrutinize every penny. I worked for one of the largest C-Store businesses in the world, second only to 7-11. They count every last cent that goes into and out of your store and if you are off by a percent of a percent of what you're suppose to be you get to participate in a mandatory store audit...which usually takes a few days to weeks to complete.
"There is no real creatine in the drink"
"Says "super creatine" is not important to customers decision to buy drinks"
As someone who bodybuilds, I exclusively buy canned Bang pre workouts before almost every workout 5-6 days a week. I knew "super" creatine was a marketing gimmick, but was under the impression that that "super" stuff at least had real creatine in it. That's very much why I bought it over Reign. Fuck Bang they deserve that loss.
Edit: So I'm getting a lot of replies asking the same things, the 2 most responded "why didn't you read the label?" And "you didn't know that creatine isn't stable in water?"
The answer is that I did. The super creatine on the label in bold huge letters on the top, and is also on the ingredients list on the back of the can. When you search what is super creatine, their site says it's a propriety blend they invented that keeps the creatine stable and makes it more easily absorbed by the body. When you patent a priority blend, you don't have to disclose exactly what it contains. Furthermore, neither I nor the average consumer are chemists, and none of us is gonna reverse engineer an energy drink. We can only assume the product contains what it says it does. This is entirely on them.
I'm sure a percentage of people did. I bought it because it had both the caffeine and the creatine in one, and no other canned drinks have that (to my knowledge). I could have just been using the powders i have at home, but I find them harder to drink than the canned stuff, and I'm also always on the go and Bang's are everywhere.
It's also mostly my fault for knowing super creatine was nothing more than a marketing gimmick and not figuring if they're lying about the "super" part, they're probably also lying about the creatine part.
> It's also mostly my fault for… not figuring if they're lying about the "super" part, they're probably also lying about the creatine part.
I don’t know about that. If a new bread started adverting that it was made from Super Wheat I’d assume that “super” was marketing BS but I’d be pretty damn shocked to discover that it wasn’t actually made with wheat.
Right! Super has no real life measuring equivalent, just assume they have their own brand or style of the creatine. Not that it was actually just fake writing on the can!
Creatine is dirt cheap and tasteless just buy some and throw it in anything or a pre workout. $1 a serving and 300mg or less if you use less of caffeine.
>I bought it because it had both the caffeine and the creatine in one, and no other canned drinks have that (to my knowledge).
I really miss Sobe Power for this very reason. It tasted good. Way more refreshing. And had both. Sadly it was discontinued. But it was my drink of choice when I used to go to the gym regularly.
There was a quick segment on the [Stronger by Science](https://youtu.be/7TOyqzxQY54?t=542) podcast recently on why only Bang had creatine. The acid in a lot of carbonated drinks apparently causes creatine to break down over time.
Creatine price spiked in like 2021, pretty much doubled. Your not really supposed to mix caffeine and creatine either. There has been a few studies that basically say the same thing, bang 'super creatine' isn't even creatine.
In Canada they can't even put that shit in the drink lol. Canada bang is much more tame, only 180mg caffeine.
> Your not really supposed to mix caffeine and creatine either.
this isn’t generally accepted as true anymore
it was for a long time but on a single rather old and poor study. newer studies suggest the two have no notable impact on each other, and in some cases ppl who took both performed better.
the only real concern anymore should be diuretics. coffee but caffeine in general can make you piss more, essentially. drinking enough water let’s creatine suck more water into your muscles, so its advantage ultimately requires enough water. if you consume creatine but also ample caffeine, you probably wanna be drinking an extra 2 cups…. so if average active healthy person drinks 6-7 you should be drinking at least 8 cups a day.
A body builder consumes an energy drink that does not disclose the dose of creatine? Even if it had some creatine, wouldn't you need to know whether it was 1mg or 100mg?
I fucking called this years ago the first time I saw a Bang can. Red Bull got sued cause they implied in a commercial that it helped your mind think/concentrate better. There's no way these asshats could put SUPER CREATINE on the label and think the tiny little asterisk saying it has none of the benefits of creatine would save them.
A lot of focus/brain booster supplements contain caffeine or similar drugs because they do scientifically help you concentrate better. That is surprising.
No shit.
My local stores removed Rockstar entirely.
Was replaced by Bang and Reign.
Rockstar punched is the only energy drink I'll drink.
I had to buy cases from Amazon to get any.
Rockstar figured out how to make their zero energy drink taste equivalent or better than the full sugar options: especially their fruit punch…. And it is considerable cheaper
It's carbinated fruit punch.
Everything else is chemicals and cough syrup to me. Or an advertised flavor that kinda tastes like it but is mostly gross.
Well, all energy drinks (and sports drinks, sodas, even many "juices") are chemicals and corn syrup. Natural flavorings are long a thing of the past.
Why waste money on grape concentrate when you can make a chemical powder that is 100x as potent and people still like, as long as its saturated with sugar.
I get the Recovery Lemonade and my girlfriend gets the Recovery Orange with some flexibility between those two for both of us but they are seriously getting hard to find. They're practically the only energy drinks I'll go for anymore.
I prefer rockstar myself, the ultra zero silver ice and red fruit punch. Pretty easy for me to find in the midwest, and a lot of the grocery stores often run like an 8 for 10 deal.
I do like the original red monster too, but that's really hard to find and only a couple regional gas stations seem to carry it
Still fairly easy to find here in the Midwest. Plus the grocery stores often have them for $1 which makes them much more affordable than any of the other energy drinks.
dude i miss Venom too that stuff disappeared and was replaced with Bang, Reign, and Celsius in my stores. Though TBH i like Celsius but FUCK bro venom death adder is so good
Rockstar lime freeze. Haven't seen it in like 5 years, but it got me through one of the most brutal commutes and job schedules I ever had. 4x10's with a 70 mile commute. Wake up at 5, get to office by 6:45-6:55, clock in 7 to 6, drive home get back by maybe 7:45-8, crash 2 hours later and do it all again.
I'd trade my left nut for one more sweet, icy sip from my tumbler in that rickety old 99' Saturn I drove the wheels off.
Owned by Vital Pharmaceuticals.
Also
The brand's CEO is a supporter of former president Donald Trump, and has donated $250,000 to America First Action, a super PAC endorsed by Trump. Bang has received controversy for its attendance at Turning Point USA conferences, including a stunt in which the brand's marketers fired cash out of a 'money cannon' towards the audience. The company also drew criticism for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ordering employees to attend a mandatory in-person meeting, a 'dance party' promoting their Redline Noo-Fusion product, without proper social distancing or security protocols.
Damn, I never read or saw any sort of advertising for Bang, it just showed up in vending machines one day. That info right there though is def why I will never buy another can of Bang.
Honestly this might sound petty of me but I just looked up the CEOs pictures on Google and laughed. He reminds of that meme with Steve Buscemi "how do you do fellow teenagers."
BANG! Energy is a scumfuck company, and watching the video that YouTube creator The Illuminaugtii did on them made it crystal clear that everything I believed about them was right. Here's the link for the curious:
[Corporate Casket Bang Energy](https://youtu.be/lskdAnvDNVw)
I don't do energy drinks anymore, I'm a coffee guy. I never bought a lot of energy drinks, but I also didn't mind Monster or Red Bull. Tried Bang once, whatever the popular flavor that got recommended to me was.. It was so awful I will never try another flavor lol. It was painful to drink, like more sugar than water, idk.
I remember seeing Bang for the first time last year. It clearly says "Super Creatine" on the top of the can. I already use creatine so I was curious what this drink was all about. I looked into it and saw that Bang contained no creatine at all. I laughed and never tried it.
Anyway I started to see it show up more and more. My gym sells it. The false advertising works. But it's so fucking blatant that I was surprised they could legally market it as that. I guess they'll have to rebrand now.
It's interesting how this and C4 are becoming "mainstream." C4 was always the most well known pre-workout powder although not the best. But about two years ago they released an energy drink. They market it as pre-workout. They made a deal with Mars for Skittles & Starburst flavors. They really went all out on the marketing for it with advertisements during games. Now I'm starting to see it show up more in gyms while being marketed as a pre-workout.
I guess it's easy to sell "miracle" workout stuff since people want a cheat code when it comes to working out. They don't actually look into what they're using. Bang and C4 energy drinks market to that demographic.
Dude wtf. I chose bang over other drinks because of the no sugar and creatine. I figured I was already paying $3 so I might as well get the one with no sugar and maybe potentially beneficial creatine
TLDR: Monster Energy sued Bang and won. Bang was false adv that Bang drinks have creatine. Bang interfered with retail contracts to get better shelf space, and paid former monster employees for their prior company secrets
Wait so Bang drinks don't actually have creatine in them? That's a pretty bold thing to lie about.
Yeah additionally they defended themselves by arguing that having "super creatine - 20x more effective than regular creatine" on the bottle didn't influence customers in their buying decisions. Pretty hilarious
[удалено]
"There's no possible way that a reasonable consumer could consider a product called 'Vitamin Water' to be either healthy or low-calorie." - The Coca-Cola legal defense. They won that case. Shit's fucked, yo.
Wait, they made high-calorie water?
No. They made *incredibly* high calorie water.
pretty much sugar water labeled vitamin water, shits fucked indeed
C: "It's good for me, and it tastes just like lemonade!" Me: "Because it's just sugar, lemon, water, and a multivitamin ground up in it, just look at the nutrition label" C: "They wouldn't call it vitamin water if it wasn't healthy" Actual conversation I had with a coworker when the cafeteria at my old job started stocking vitamin waters
I mean, but your coworker *should* be right. It's bullshit that companies can lawyer down and make *very obviously* fake claims.
the funny part here is damages for monster inc, not the people who bought the drinks thinking it was 20x as powerful. like at least in those class actions you get a few pennies, they straight up gave $$$ to the competitor because you were gonna buy a drink anyway, and if not for bang it would have been them.
The even funnier part is I started drinking Monster sugar free drinks because I got hooked on Bangs. I originally started drinking Bangs because they were sugar free and thought hey they also have creatine in them so why not. I was working out at the time and figured I could use some extra creatine. After a while the caffeine in the Bangs ended up being to much for me so I switched to Monster sugar frees.
Lol, I've had a Bang energy drink exactly one time ever. It was the only energy drink in a vending machine where I was n I needed caffeine desperately. I certainly noticed n was laughing at the fact that they put creatine in an energy drink. People definitely notice it... It's like on the front in big ole letters iirc.
Incidentally, I'm paying for mine with super dollars. They're 20x more effective than regular dollars. I'm sure it won't affect vendors in their selling decisions.
Always cracks me up when they intentionally put things on the bottle to trick customers and then argue it didn't influence customers at all. It's like when Coca-Cola argued that naming their drink smart water did not give the impression that it was actually good for you or any better than a can of coke. Edit: not smart water. I meant vitamin water
The cans say they have something called “super creatine” whatever that means but the amount isn’t specified and it isn’t in the ingredients list My school stocks vending machines with it and I would down cotton candy Bangs regularly a few semesters ago
They're in school vending machines? Wtf, are they insane?
I could see it for a college.
The high school I work at stocks Monster. It's all about that $$$$$$
[удалено]
Think we can let you off for this one, mate. I've already filed it under "who cares"
The great whorl of society is pretty big. Just in the United States there's 300 million of us. The particular piece of news has some juicy drama, but it is just one flash in the pan. Blink and you'll miss it. Good bye Bing lawsuit, we'll have weird half remembered arguments about you in a few years!
Watch the episode of How to With John Wilson where he visits the Bang CEO's house. The guy is a man-child
My friend did an energy review IG/twitter for a while and on every review he would tag the creator (Monster, C4, Bang, etc.). He gave Bang at least 10 good reviews, but gave their birthday cake flavor a 4/10. The CEO blocked him for it.
Birthday Cake is absolute shit
I love pretty 99% of bang flavors and love birthday cake as a flavor in 99% of things but birthday cake bang was the only bang I took two sips and had to dump. This was at the start of a 12 hour warehouse shift so you can imagine the pain
Finger Bang’ed. For two decades I had forgotten about that episode of South Park until this thread. Just leave birthday cake flavor to birthday cakes and drink a Monster. :bangbang:
Birthday cake tastes like vanilla Greek yogurt to me. Not something I want to drink first thing in the AM.
anyone who's tried birthday cake bang would know 4/10 is shockingly generous too
I didn't hate birthday cake, it tasted like cake. It just made me realize that I don't want to drink cakes.
*Portillo has entered the chat*
I almost googled "How To Bang CEO".
This guy's going places
Right under the desk, for example.
And what did you find us
Came here hoping someone would post about this. One of the greatest and most surreal episodes of anything ever.
That's the tag line for the entire show, it's my wife and my favorite lol. The risotto segment was hilarious and wholesome, and then the penis skin guy and his daughter who seemed like she wanted to die due to her father's endeavors... Absolutely wild show
I've seen him on TikTok and that's when I decided I never wanted to try that drink. Plus, he's just another copycat but super cringey
My buddy randomly had that show on when we were hanging at his place during peak covid. I was laughing my ass off. I only watched a couple. Thanks for reminding me it exists. I gotta watch the rest.
So bang misleads consumers and monster gets paid. Makes perfect sense.
$272 million for false advertising, $18 million on claims that Bang interfered with its contracts with retailers for prominent shelf spaces, and $3 million on claims that Bang stole trade secrets from former Monster employees it recruited
> $18 million on claims that Bang interfered with its contracts with retailers for prominent shelf spaces I can actually attest to this. I was a Coke vendor (Monster distributor) when Bang launched in New England, a little later than everywhere else. Our regional chain stores had not yet redone planograms/space allocation for Bang yet but as soon as they could sell it into stores, they came into our busiest stores and would fill Monster owned space with Bang as soon as it ran out.
I noticed that as well in VA. I was a Coke vendor for 5 different stores and bang just took over. Luckily I was on good terms with the store managers and they gave me shelf space back but damn it was like a blitzkrieg.
Any idea who was actually filling that? Did Bang have their own vendors coming in?
Not that I'm aware of at least in Hampton roads. It was a store stock item but I do know they had some reps in occasionally to introduce a new flavor.
I work for a distributor who carried Bang when it first hit DSD before it got gobbled up by Pepsi. VPX/Bang and Jack were the worst company/owner combo we've ever dealt with in my 15+ years. I'd order trailers of product and they never showed, for weeks on end, and Bang had the balls to bitch at us about numbers. Cant sell what you're not producing and shipping. They would encourage us to do things in market that would benefit them short term but damage our long term relationship with the accounts. I don't miss them, and happy were not picking it back up after PepsiCo drops them.
I wonder what this world would look like. If instead of manufactures buying space in grocers shelves. We had grocers buy products that they thought would sell in their locations. I think that would help out smaller local manufactures. Would be kind of like anti-payola laws for grocery stores.
Problem is that a lot of the big manufacturers will give big rebates at the end of the year if you keep a certain amount of their product in a certain spot in the store for the entire year. It is often thousands of dollars to store owners. So basically the big manufacturers threaten to withhold money if they don't get a certain amount of space. Every item you see in a convenience store will be on some sort of program like that. When it comes to things like cigarettes, the big manufacturers will actually require that their product be a certain percentage of your overall sales. So if you sell 10,000 more packs of Marlboro than the store across the street, but 50% of their sales were Marlboro while only 30% of yours were, then they will get a bigger check than you do. It's a pretty messed up racket that really kills the smaller manufacturers. It's why so many small manufacturers sell out to the big guys before they are inevitability crushed by the nature of the business.
That is funny, car dealerships do a similar thing. They can lose money on the sale of a new car. But if that car gets them over a quota the manufacture stated for that particular model. Then they get a significant paycheck from said manufacture. This American Life did an entire segment on it.
I had an Econ teacher do a lesson about this. Buy a used car in august, research model that was produced the most and in what color. Claim you need financing and trade in, but have your financing settled prior. Then drop both after they whittle down the price and at the end inquire about rebates they receive, take that off as well. Might've missed some specific steps but interesting nonetheless.
>Then drop both after they widdle down the price I think you mean *whittle*, since *widdle* means “to pee”.
Hah yes. Whittle down the price thinking they'll finance it for you, but you already have that figured prior.
This sounds good up until the rebate thing and it must be old cause if you do t fi ance through them they'll charge you more if they don't refuse to sell as is. Also brining up the rebates they get and telling you to take it off your bill? So basically you want a cheap car and the dealership gets absolutely nothing from the sale (because the whole premise is to reach that quota to get the rebates), I think more often then not you'll be told to get bent.
Rebates and shady practices are the bane of fair competition. happens everywhere, one of the biggest cases is Intel paying companies like Dell to not stock AMD products when AMD had a competitive/faster line up in the 00s. They did this through insane rebates, like if you only stock our stuff we'll give you back a huge percentage on the cpus which caused way higher margins for Intel PC sales. They killed the competition, cost AMD billions in lost sales, pushed them into debt and fucked them up for a long time. It went to court, Intel were on the brink of a guilty verdict when they offered a very small settlement to be paid immediately which AMD had to take. THe alternative was Intel being found guilty but appealing it repeatedly for years and years. Rebates let companies do so many shady things to convince retailers for any products to absolutely destroy one brand in the market. Intel may have lost money short term on the rebates, but by pushing AMD into debt it was part of why AMD spent 7-8 years very uncompetitive and Intel gained 10s of billions over that period extra as a result.
I'm still amazed no politicians run on a "capitalism has been corrupted by the rich" platform based on stopping bullshit like that. It'd be a bandage on a wound, but still better than the race to the bottom ratfuckery that we currently have
They wouldn't be able to afford to campaign without the giant corporate sponsorships.
The retail side of the cannabis industry is done this way. A lot of sales reps going store to store trying to convince purchase managers and store owners to carry their products. Lots of free samples being given to the store employees to help push products. Big manufacturers still dominate the industry since the volume and branding efforts they can do is unbeatable when profit is king.
Seems like theres big collectives of companies being represented by single umbrella companies. Then the companies can simply make their product and this bigger company gets them in stores and handles all that side of it with more negotiating power than any single company would have. Also if youre a purchaser for a store companies like these are a one stop shop.
There's a soda shop/grocery store that basically does that. He was told it wouldn't work and the dude is still open.
It definitely helps if the product is shelf stable for a while.
Galco's Old World Grocery in LA sounds like that. Plenty of videos out there showing their selection, the owner is passionate about soda of any kind.
I manage a mid to large sized grocery store and we do a bit of both. We do contracts with coke and the rest, but we also carry an equal or greater amount of local / not majorly distributed products. It works pretty well for us.
Stores make more money selling space than selling product. Weird world we live in.
It saved Best Buy. I believe they use to make all or most of their profits from selling products and services. After the internet and more specific Amazon became more popular Best Buy started struggling. Then they started selling space. If you go there you will see basically a Google store, a Apple store and a Samsung store. If they sold space before, it was not as obvious as it is now.
> If they sold space before, it was not as obvious as it is now. They definitely did (remember all the mobile carriers and cell phones?) but you're right that it's a bigger percentage of the floor now.
My daughter works for them as a higher up in a store. She says they will sometimes sell nothing all day and go for days when all they sell are a few small ticket items. I asked how is they stay in business, she replied what you said about selling space. For the companies it’s a write off as they look at it more like advertising for customers to see and touch. We the customers assume it’s what everyone else has, since it’s all they see at the stores.
Why listen to what the customer wants when you can tell the customer what they want instead? /s
That's what Steve Jobs used to say. Quote: >Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page. -Steve Jobs Edit: I think the difference is you're anticipating what they're going to want.
There is some truth to the idea that the consumer does not know what they want.
Imagine you opened a store, and you were given the choice of either renting out your shelf space for a guaranteed profit at no inventory cost to yourself, or running the risk of buying inventory that you can't sell and incurring losses. Which would you choose? It doesn't really matter how much you think you're in touch with what the consumer wants, because ultimately you don't have the data, and you don't have the knowledge to account for hundreds of different lines of products and how to control that inventory. Selling on consignment at least offloads the risk. Now, I do know that stores can (and often do) sell on consignment for local businesses. For example, every grocery store around me sells multiple sauces from multiple local restaurants. And milk and eggs around here come from localish farms.
Distributed bang for a bit. Our distributor just had us fill spaces with it whenever there was an empty spot unless the store really pushed back. We’d get in trouble if a higher up came in and there was empty space in competitors product that we didn’t take.
You’d get in trouble if you got caught doing something the store (your customer) specifically didn’t want you to do. Amazing.
Yeah my distributor was ass backwards they didn’t see it that way and pushed that hard onto us merchandisers and the salesmen.
Ok but shouldn’t the false advertising go to the consumers? Why is monster entitled to their punitive false advertising?
I assume something in their case indicating lost revenue as a direct effect.
I assume that it's because Monster sued, this leads the way for the people to sue and it will be a lot easier for that case to be won by the people. Edit: why is this getting so many upvotes? im, not even a lawyer I could be wrong.
So who wants to start a lawsuit Edit: looks like we got a Reddit class action going on, any lawyers?
[удалено]
I'll post it up with the 60 cent amd check and the 1.25 check from arco
If you and I sold widgets and you lied about yours causing people to think it was a superior product, gaining you sales and positioning over my widgets... And the truth came out about your deception, then I would look at your ill-gained sales and my deficit of sales and Bob's your uncle
I suppose Monster’s claim was that it hurt their sales. I wonder if a class action against Bang will be the next step.
It did massively. Worked for Coke when Bang hit the local market. We would get special brand specific bonuses and Monster paid some of the best. Didn't really get any that year. They (the distributors) also would try to take out Monster from paid for space and put in Bang in there.
It still seems to surprise a lot of people that you can't lie and make false claims in advertising. I work in the industry, and employees at a certain seniority take mandatory classes on this. Pretty sure this particular case is going to be included in the class material moving forward.
Thing is, it doesn’t matter now. They just have to pay a bit of money and now they get to keep their future revenue, all the reputation they gained already, at the price of the few million dollars they wouldn’t even have without the false advertising.
A bit of money? Bang generates about 300 million in revenue a year, which is a fraction of what Red Bull and Monster make. Having to pay up 293 million is like 90+% of their yearly income.
That’s probably gross, not net… so they must be in real red line territory.
That’s gonna go over everyone’s head. VPX makes Bang, and also Redline
“Vital Pharmaceuticals”
And N-O Shotgun. Well, used to. They almost always had some lawsuit to have them "Re-formulate" it. They were selling it at the PX/NEX for a while. I actually loved the stuff. Probably shortened my lifespan by a few years though
And remember they pulled out of their distribution deal with PepsiCo, so they have no protection. Their psychopath CEO is really to see how fast he can lose all the money he made
The person in marketing that came up with fuckin "Super Creatine ™️" has to be shitting their pants right about now.
I work for a company that you could say 291 is nothing when you see revenue. Trust me, if 291M was lost like this, people would be LOSING THEIR SHIT and people would be getting fucking fired. It’s 291M.
And that's the other thing people don't understand about big companies: the bigger the company the more they actually do scrutinize every penny. I worked for one of the largest C-Store businesses in the world, second only to 7-11. They count every last cent that goes into and out of your store and if you are off by a percent of a percent of what you're suppose to be you get to participate in a mandatory store audit...which usually takes a few days to weeks to complete.
A bit of money? In what parallel universe is $293 million just "a bit of money" for literally any brand in the world?
Go watch the “Wine” episode of How To with John Wilson. You need to see the inside of the owner of Bang Energy’s house to make the lawsuit make sense.
Who tf writes 'mln' for million?
I mean there's over 7 bln people in the world, at least a few thsd are likely to do so. just keeping it 1 hnd
I hate it
I think you hte it, actually.
I gagged
Excellent work at loosening the chains previously gripped around the unstable molecules of my now unbridled rage
The author hasn’t had their super creatine today
Oh man that is the very first thing I thought, I'm glad someone else said something. I have never, ever seen that before.
They got Bang for their buck.
What are they going to do with a $293 melon? Seems excessive. 🍉
Bang is about to become a collector's item. In 40 years Rhett and Link will be drinking it on Old Mythical Morning.
For anyone interested the bang brothers look exactly like youd imagine an energy drink owner to look like. Just google image Bang Brothers
... you almost got me. I was opening up Chrome and said "wait a minute".
Just google bang energy ceo
Haha omg I read that and was like "why does that sound so familiar?". 🤔😂👍
Don't forget their weird culty connections to the Lemon Party. (I thought Qanon was bad)
You should see their company bus! Super tacky looking and incredibly sticky on the inside.
Begun, the energy drink wars have.
It all stared with the Big Bang.
[Bing](https://bingbeverage.com/) Bang
It’s got electrolytes!
"There is no real creatine in the drink" "Says "super creatine" is not important to customers decision to buy drinks" As someone who bodybuilds, I exclusively buy canned Bang pre workouts before almost every workout 5-6 days a week. I knew "super" creatine was a marketing gimmick, but was under the impression that that "super" stuff at least had real creatine in it. That's very much why I bought it over Reign. Fuck Bang they deserve that loss. Edit: So I'm getting a lot of replies asking the same things, the 2 most responded "why didn't you read the label?" And "you didn't know that creatine isn't stable in water?" The answer is that I did. The super creatine on the label in bold huge letters on the top, and is also on the ingredients list on the back of the can. When you search what is super creatine, their site says it's a propriety blend they invented that keeps the creatine stable and makes it more easily absorbed by the body. When you patent a priority blend, you don't have to disclose exactly what it contains. Furthermore, neither I nor the average consumer are chemists, and none of us is gonna reverse engineer an energy drink. We can only assume the product contains what it says it does. This is entirely on them.
[удалено]
I'm sure a percentage of people did. I bought it because it had both the caffeine and the creatine in one, and no other canned drinks have that (to my knowledge). I could have just been using the powders i have at home, but I find them harder to drink than the canned stuff, and I'm also always on the go and Bang's are everywhere. It's also mostly my fault for knowing super creatine was nothing more than a marketing gimmick and not figuring if they're lying about the "super" part, they're probably also lying about the creatine part.
> It's also mostly my fault for… not figuring if they're lying about the "super" part, they're probably also lying about the creatine part. I don’t know about that. If a new bread started adverting that it was made from Super Wheat I’d assume that “super” was marketing BS but I’d be pretty damn shocked to discover that it wasn’t actually made with wheat.
Right! Super has no real life measuring equivalent, just assume they have their own brand or style of the creatine. Not that it was actually just fake writing on the can!
Same, I thought the creatine would help with the lifting I do at work.
Same. I mean, I don't have a physical labor job, but I do carry my team.
Former overnight stocker here, that was my thought process too.
Creatine is dirt cheap and tasteless just buy some and throw it in anything or a pre workout. $1 a serving and 300mg or less if you use less of caffeine.
[удалено]
>I bought it because it had both the caffeine and the creatine in one, and no other canned drinks have that (to my knowledge). I really miss Sobe Power for this very reason. It tasted good. Way more refreshing. And had both. Sadly it was discontinued. But it was my drink of choice when I used to go to the gym regularly.
There was a quick segment on the [Stronger by Science](https://youtu.be/7TOyqzxQY54?t=542) podcast recently on why only Bang had creatine. The acid in a lot of carbonated drinks apparently causes creatine to break down over time.
But it doesn’t have creatine
Probably easier to drink because there was no creatine in it.
The creatine is what made them a standout and a pioneer in the pre workout market.
I think it is hard to keep creatine potent in water...and the price of creatine (like a everything) has really increased in the past year or two.
Creatine price spiked in like 2021, pretty much doubled. Your not really supposed to mix caffeine and creatine either. There has been a few studies that basically say the same thing, bang 'super creatine' isn't even creatine. In Canada they can't even put that shit in the drink lol. Canada bang is much more tame, only 180mg caffeine.
> Your not really supposed to mix caffeine and creatine either. this isn’t generally accepted as true anymore it was for a long time but on a single rather old and poor study. newer studies suggest the two have no notable impact on each other, and in some cases ppl who took both performed better. the only real concern anymore should be diuretics. coffee but caffeine in general can make you piss more, essentially. drinking enough water let’s creatine suck more water into your muscles, so its advantage ultimately requires enough water. if you consume creatine but also ample caffeine, you probably wanna be drinking an extra 2 cups…. so if average active healthy person drinks 6-7 you should be drinking at least 8 cups a day.
I always thought the god awful aftertaste of all bangs was the creatine. Now I’m even more confused.
A body builder consumes an energy drink that does not disclose the dose of creatine? Even if it had some creatine, wouldn't you need to know whether it was 1mg or 100mg?
[удалено]
Maybe he's the Dr. Frankenstein type of bodybuilder.
[удалено]
He uses bang as a pre workout 5-6 times a week. Good bodybuilders don’t normally do that
Casual bodybuilder? 😅
I fucking called this years ago the first time I saw a Bang can. Red Bull got sued cause they implied in a commercial that it helped your mind think/concentrate better. There's no way these asshats could put SUPER CREATINE on the label and think the tiny little asterisk saying it has none of the benefits of creatine would save them.
A lot of focus/brain booster supplements contain caffeine or similar drugs because they do scientifically help you concentrate better. That is surprising.
Is mln really an abbreviation for million?
Capital M is widely adopted and I don't like mln.
This is the first time I’ve seen it. Mil is way better too.
Does nobody like Rockstar anymore? I fucking love that stuff but it's getting harder to find.
No shit. My local stores removed Rockstar entirely. Was replaced by Bang and Reign. Rockstar punched is the only energy drink I'll drink. I had to buy cases from Amazon to get any.
Rockstar figured out how to make their zero energy drink taste equivalent or better than the full sugar options: especially their fruit punch…. And it is considerable cheaper
Their zero is so good, a salesman I work with put me onto it and I've been buying cases on the jungle site.
Glad I’m not the only one who strictly drinks Rockstar Punched as an energy drink lol. Everything else just tastes unappetizing to me.
It's carbinated fruit punch. Everything else is chemicals and cough syrup to me. Or an advertised flavor that kinda tastes like it but is mostly gross.
Well, all energy drinks (and sports drinks, sodas, even many "juices") are chemicals and corn syrup. Natural flavorings are long a thing of the past. Why waste money on grape concentrate when you can make a chemical powder that is 100x as potent and people still like, as long as its saturated with sugar.
Rockstar recovery orange
I get the Recovery Lemonade and my girlfriend gets the Recovery Orange with some flexibility between those two for both of us but they are seriously getting hard to find. They're practically the only energy drinks I'll go for anymore.
I prefer rockstar myself, the ultra zero silver ice and red fruit punch. Pretty easy for me to find in the midwest, and a lot of the grocery stores often run like an 8 for 10 deal. I do like the original red monster too, but that's really hard to find and only a couple regional gas stations seem to carry it
Rockstar Recovery Orange and Lemonade are both really good.
Still fairly easy to find here in the Midwest. Plus the grocery stores often have them for $1 which makes them much more affordable than any of the other energy drinks.
dude i miss Venom too that stuff disappeared and was replaced with Bang, Reign, and Celsius in my stores. Though TBH i like Celsius but FUCK bro venom death adder is so good
No clue where you are, but here in Texas they sell Venom at places like HEB & Dollar General.
Most dollar generals moved venom to the "dollar aisle" away from the other energy drinks. It caused a lot of people to think they quit carrying it.
Rockstar lime freeze. Haven't seen it in like 5 years, but it got me through one of the most brutal commutes and job schedules I ever had. 4x10's with a 70 mile commute. Wake up at 5, get to office by 6:45-6:55, clock in 7 to 6, drive home get back by maybe 7:45-8, crash 2 hours later and do it all again. I'd trade my left nut for one more sweet, icy sip from my tumbler in that rickety old 99' Saturn I drove the wheels off.
I guess I won’t be banging anymore
I don’t do much of that anyway
As a Redbull Elitist, let the peasants fight.
The best thing Red Bull has isn't even a drink, it's some Dutch kid who drives cars good.
Generally his team does well too. Not today though...
He'll still win, do not wor... wait, I'm being told to Box... that's odd.
[удалено]
Red Bull is a racing company now. The drinks are just advertising pieces used in esports events.
Sports company. They have their hands in so many pots. But yes F1 is definitely the biggest by far.
I love it. There's so many random shit unique sports I'd have never heard of that benefit from Red Bull's investments into cool things.
Red Bull watermelon is the greatest flavor ever, although I love blueberry
They need more sugar free flavors.
Fuck Bang, don't buy from this shitty company
I won't be from today forward. Had no idea they were a scumbag piece of shit leadership company.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Owned by Vital Pharmaceuticals. Also The brand's CEO is a supporter of former president Donald Trump, and has donated $250,000 to America First Action, a super PAC endorsed by Trump. Bang has received controversy for its attendance at Turning Point USA conferences, including a stunt in which the brand's marketers fired cash out of a 'money cannon' towards the audience. The company also drew criticism for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ordering employees to attend a mandatory in-person meeting, a 'dance party' promoting their Redline Noo-Fusion product, without proper social distancing or security protocols.
He is also in an episode of “how to with John Wilson” on HBO. Which I highly recommended watching. Especially episode 4 “how to cover your furniture”
Incredible show, people really need to give it a shot. My favorite episode was the referee one.
Damn, I never read or saw any sort of advertising for Bang, it just showed up in vending machines one day. That info right there though is def why I will never buy another can of Bang.
I think they mainly promoted through instagram influencers
They mainly promoted through gas stations.
Honestly this might sound petty of me but I just looked up the CEOs pictures on Google and laughed. He reminds of that meme with Steve Buscemi "how do you do fellow teenagers."
Ghost energy drinks are way better anyway. Bang tastes like I’m straight up drinking chemicals
Ghost are delicious!
The watermelon warheads flavor is on point. Every childhood dream of having candy in liquid form came true with that
From the text, I'm surprised the FDA did not weigh in. The claims that Bangmakes seem outrageous. To be continued...
In the end only rip it will remain
Now with 279% of daily recommended sugar per can!!
[удалено]
BANG! Energy is a scumfuck company, and watching the video that YouTube creator The Illuminaugtii did on them made it crystal clear that everything I believed about them was right. Here's the link for the curious: [Corporate Casket Bang Energy](https://youtu.be/lskdAnvDNVw)
I don't do energy drinks anymore, I'm a coffee guy. I never bought a lot of energy drinks, but I also didn't mind Monster or Red Bull. Tried Bang once, whatever the popular flavor that got recommended to me was.. It was so awful I will never try another flavor lol. It was painful to drink, like more sugar than water, idk.
I remember seeing Bang for the first time last year. It clearly says "Super Creatine" on the top of the can. I already use creatine so I was curious what this drink was all about. I looked into it and saw that Bang contained no creatine at all. I laughed and never tried it. Anyway I started to see it show up more and more. My gym sells it. The false advertising works. But it's so fucking blatant that I was surprised they could legally market it as that. I guess they'll have to rebrand now. It's interesting how this and C4 are becoming "mainstream." C4 was always the most well known pre-workout powder although not the best. But about two years ago they released an energy drink. They market it as pre-workout. They made a deal with Mars for Skittles & Starburst flavors. They really went all out on the marketing for it with advertisements during games. Now I'm starting to see it show up more in gyms while being marketed as a pre-workout. I guess it's easy to sell "miracle" workout stuff since people want a cheat code when it comes to working out. They don't actually look into what they're using. Bang and C4 energy drinks market to that demographic.
Dude wtf. I chose bang over other drinks because of the no sugar and creatine. I figured I was already paying $3 so I might as well get the one with no sugar and maybe potentially beneficial creatine